Human Traces

by Sebastian Faulks

  He pursed his lips and shrugged with his palms turned outward at the bottom of his skinny arms, trying not to smile.

  For weeks Sonia kept the card on the mantelpiece in her bedroom; it was the question mark that made her laugh every time she looked at it. When Jacques came back from work, he took to asking her, ‘How are you, my love? And how is Mr Question Mark? How is little Herr Fragezeichen?’

  As for Sonia, what she felt for the child was beyond words and she did not really care to examine it. When he had saved with his own money to buy her a present, a useless embroidered purse, the pleasure of receiving it was so shot through with a sort of anguish at what it told of Daniel and of his view of her that the pleasure lasted only for an instant, and she experienced the charming gesture as a sort of memento mori. Likewise, when she went to kiss him goodnight, the last thing before she herself went to bed, she murmured words of utter devotion as she leaned over; as she kissed him and inhaled the smell of him, she felt her whole being shift in her guts and knew that this vertiginous lurch of feeling came about in her because she was really thinking what a short time he would remain a child – the nights could be numbered – and what a short life would be his on earth. In truth, it occurred to her, she was not kissing her child a happy goodnight, she was thinking of his death.

  Seeing this, and feeling shocked by it, Sonia decided she would not be maudlin any more. Just because these thoughts sprang naturally, from an excess of love, did not mean they were healthy. She would banish them, she decided, and look at the world through his eyes only, because his view was assuredly a happy and a healthy one. Daniel saw delight in everything. His day was love and food and cable-cars and Freddy and the bewitchingly comic twins; it was Hans and the pony and Aunt Kitty and the majestic view from his warm bedroom. This was human joy; it was his birthright; and it was Sonia’s privilege and duty to share in it, simply, without morbid or excessive under-thoughts.

  So she looked at the clock to see how soon he would be home from school.

  Visitors to the Wilhelmskogel were looked after by Hans, who had built and now administered a refuge, to which they were directed from the top of the cable-car. It was some distance from the clinic and offered food, drink and a simple washroom. Hans was also able to give advice on the walks available at the summit, of which the most popular was a two-hour ramble back to the foot of the cable Incline. Neither Jacques nor Thomas cared much for the inflow of visitors, but the provision of some tourist services had been a condition of the public funding, so they had no choice and offered Hans a share in the visitor profits. The clinic itself was full. The publicity that surrounded the building of the transport system had proved an effective advertisement, and in the following summer PierreValade, in the course of an extended visit, drew up plans for a further building, safely walled, far from the edge, but with walkways under wrought-iron decorations.

  When the work had started, Thomas told Jacques that since his American venture had paid off so profitably it was time for him now, after twelve years in partnership and seventeen with his shoulder to the wheel of lunacy, to take sabbatical leave. He wrote to Hannes Regensburger to tell him that his business partner and his wife had consented to a three-month absence; and in the summer of the following year he departed.

  My Dearest Little Kitty,

  This is the most wonderful experience I have had – or perhaps the second most wonderful, because nothing could better my discovery of the secret passage that led me straight to you . . .

  However, this is different. The voyage itself was extremely dull and I had run out of books by Suez. It was easy enough to complete the rail journey to Brindisi, where we (Hannes R, his assistant Lukas, and yr husband) took a ship to Piraeus, through the Suez Canal and down the Red Sea to Aden. Hannes is a poor sailor and spent much of the time in his cabin. There was little for me to see except the picturesque Arab dhows sailing back and forth. From Aden there is a monthly mail service that runs down to Zanzibar, where we were to meet an Englishman called Crocker who has ‘experience of the Interior’.

  The island of Zanzibar, Hannes told me, was once famous for its evil smells and I had read Burton on this subject (he called it ‘Stinkybar’); but I thought it was beautiful. It was early morning when we arrived. The sea was deep blue save for the occasional flash of white sail; and beyond it the continent was invisible under dark cloud. As we docked, though, and as the small boats came alongside, the mists began to lift; the sun came through; and suddenly I could see the dark outline, the mountains and shapes of Africa. Oh, Kitty, I cannot describe the thrill it struck to my soul. From here, from somewhere just beyond those lifting mists, human beings had first walked – and no one who calls himself human can fail to be moved by his first sight of our long home.

  The small boys on the boats were diving in the water, hoping we would throw them money; tradesmen tried to sell us skins and ivory, spices and bananas, calling up from their craft. We ignored them and made for the beach – at the far end of which was a sturdy white building with a Union flag: the British consulate.

  Here we were to meet Crocker, the big white hunter who was to make up our number. The staff of the consulate were thrilled to have visitors and by noon we had already drunk the King’s health in a variety of gin cocktails. Crocker turned out to be rather small, with spectacles, but extremely loquacious and knowledgeable. He talked about Stanley’s journey from here to Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika to find Livingstone – and rather gave the impression that he had been on it, though he can only have been about twelve years old at the time.

  We stayed two days, then sailed for Tanga. Here the expedition began in earnest. Hannes and Crocker set about hiring porters; Crocker assured us we should need ten natives to each white man, which seemed excessive to me, but I let them get on with it. The first hired were then set to make pack-saddles for the donkeys and I noticed that most of Crocker’s baggage seemed to consist of weapons and ammunition. I have promised to do my share of game shooting, but since I could seldom hit a rabbit at Torrington, I am not too hopeful.

  My darling Kitty, I am writing this to you on the evening of July 1. Tomorrow we set off for the Interior. I am sitting in my bedroom in a small hotel in Tanga, all alone, because the others have moved to a campsite out of town, where, once I had run my eye over the native porters (I rejected two – one rickety, one clearly feverish), I was deemed surplus to requirements. The consulate in Zanzibar, and Crocker and the Germans in Tanga all assure us that the journey is safe and straightforward, so you are not to worry about me, my dearest one. For most of the way, we can apparently stop at Government rest houses with clean water and good food.

  I must post this letter tomorrow, but I shall write a diary every day, in the form of a letter to you, so you shall have it handed to you on my return. Please kiss the girls good night every day from me. Say to Martha, ‘Papa loves you’; and to Charlotte, ‘Dada loves you.’ The difference may seem nugatory to you, but I assure you it is vital. I embrace you, Kitten, with all my heart. Auf Wiedersehen.

  Your ever-loving husband,

  Thomas

  Kitty—

  We set off early, in the cold misty morning. The Government rest houses are a day’s march apart and German E. Africa is well provided for in this respect. Our caravan consists of 38 porters, about 45 donkeys, four mules (for the white men, though I prefer to walk as much as I can), Hannes, Lukas, Crocker and your husband. It is frankly a ridiculous sight, like a gaudy Chaucerian pilgrimage, but with Crocker the only tale-teller. On the first day, we made fourteen miles and could have done more if the pack-saddles had not kept slipping.

  Crocker told the boys to look lively or he would take them to the Government station, about fifteen miles way in Wilhelmstal, where they would receive a good thrashing from a powerful Nubian the Germans keep for the purpose. There was much muttering and rolling eyes, but it seemed to work, as they set to with a will in the morning.

  This is a beautiful country and the climate is heave
nly. I had imagined equatorial conditions – torturing heat, thirst, humidity – but by day it is warm, growing hot but seldom unpleasant; by night it is cool enough to sleep easily, growing cold later, so that I take a woollen blanket or two to bed. When we pass a native, he stands aside deferentially, imagining, I suppose that we are his colonial masters – and at least we all do speak German, except Crocker; though fortunately he is fluent in Swahili. Or so he assures us; and he certainly made himself understood over the thrashing business. He is in the trade of buying and selling cattle, and we now have half a dozen emaciated cows tagging along with us. Rinderpest and other diseases have decimated the cattle population, apparently, but a few can still be traded for cloth, trinkets or money and Crocker is certain they will fetch high prices at market.

  Everything was perfect until we reached the Wagogo River, bound for the ‘boma’, or Government station at Kilimanjaro. Some of the porters did not like the look of the swamp; neither did the donkeys; and neither, to be frank, did I. The donkeys were off-saddled and this was a mistake as we did not all make it through before dark, and some spent a miserable night on the far side waiting for dawn. However, the ‘boma’ was a fine place, with three Germans in charge of about a hundred natives. There was also a very boring Hungarian count, full of stories of his travels through Arabia; I managed to settle him with Crocker and a bottle of whisky and left them to it. It was cold, and I slept like a child in a wooden Bavarian bed.

  Our next stop is Arusha, a few days away, still on a north-westerly line, after which we head due west towards Ngorongoro. After Arusha, the country, though open, is much less known and the going will be slower, partly because this is where the business of cartography will begin in earnest (the environs of Tanga, Moshi and Arusha already being quite well surveyed). Mt Kilimanjaro itself is a lonely beast, awkward, unattached, not like an Alp, thickly covered in green at its base, then rising steeply to – I think – about six thousand metres (six little Wilhelmskogels on top of one another!). Its peaks are snow-white, which is not at all what one expects to see in Africa; and above the snow is a kind of golden band of reflected light. It makes one’s heart soar to look on it.

  In addition to being the medical officer, I have been appointed official photographer to the expedition and I have brought my faithful old Underwood as well as a Kodak. I have to develop at night, in a makeshift hut-darkroom, without electric light, and this is hazardous, since you do not know what your hand is going to alight on. It is not always a chemical bottle; last night it was a snake.

  On our third and final night at Arusha, Hannes was excited that his work was about to start and Crocker, who had so far shot little but wildebeest, had the scent of bigger game in his nostrils. One or two of the natives seemed anxious about going into territory they knew less well, but Crocker (so he reported) told them it was just a large plain, so provided they kept their wits about them, they could not go wrong. I have noticed that he talks to them as though they were children and he a rather fierce schoolmaster; when he rebukes them they look at their feet like naughty boys – but they do not seem to mind, provided they are paid. We give them pieces of calico, to make clothes, meat from game we have killed with our rifles and in some cases rupees, though these are of no use to them outside large towns. It is not much, but the alternative for them is nothing but hunting with spears.

  Then we set off to the west, and the succeeding days have become a little blurred in my memory: –

  I wake in an African sunrise. It is cold. I go outside the tent and see some of the natives sleeping, some tending the fire. The donkeys snort; occasionally, one of them brays loudly, like a creaky old windlass at the end of its rope. The smoke from the little fire rises straight over the windless plain. I hear Hannes snoring in his tent. There are distant volcanoes over the grassland. I feel close to the beginning of life. Here are animals, humans; nothing has changed for millions of years. It is simple, it is harmonious, but it is also magnificent.

  I go back into the tent and pull more crimson and purple blankets over me. I feel light – insignificant – yet profoundly happy and at ease. I am woken later by a boy with tea.

  We have hard-boiled eggs left over from the last rest station, with bread made from something called ‘matesi’; cold roasted meat (eland for preference, but we are not fussy; they are all quite good with a little salt). Then we plod off before it grows too warm. After an hour or so Hannes and Lukas stop and set to work with theodolites; they take notes, write down angles, compute distances. Lukas also sketches rapidly and well. They compare their findings with the rudimentary charts that have been made before – often the occasion of hilarity. I am required to take photographs, which I am to number carefully so that they tally with a particular piece of triangulation. It is enjoyable work.

  The villages we pass through are generally dirty; the natives have little idea of hygiene, and all the filth runs down an open gutter. George, the chief bearer, told Crocker that when the whole place becomes too disgusting they simply abandon it and move on. The people generally run away at the sight of us. George said they believe our skin colour is due to the fact that we come from the Coast; they do not think of us as a different race, but as a sort of Coastal Negro.

  One night we pitch camp above Lake Manyara on a magnificent plateau, giving views over what feels almost like an entire continent. The whole lake was visible, with a dark, forested mountain range beyond it to the north. Clear streams run at this altitude. We bathe and drink as much as we like. I feel we should play cricket or football, but, unlike the Indians we have met, the Africans are not a playful people. They are solemn and watchful.

  They frequently stop by the wayside to leave a stone or a piece of wood at the foot of a tree or on a rock where others have done the same; this is a votive offering to some Supreme Being. These spirits are quite easily propitiated; I have seen them offered nothing more than a tuft of grass!

  We make slow progress because of the stops for cartography – perhaps ten or twelve miles a day. At night we build a great fire, pitch the tents and have a feast. We carry plenty of water, but there is always anxiety about where the next supply will be. The natives drink recklessly, but Crocker told me that weak tea is the best thing to drink during the day and provided me with a bottle. He was right, and one of the boys makes me one up each morning. We have a case of whisky and I like to sit on a rock with Hannes and watch the sun go down to the taste of Scottish peat.

  It is a dream, Kitty. Time has stopped and there seems nothing in existence but this endless plain. I lie down tired to sleep and I am happy.

  For the first time in my life, I feel that all the small insights, intuitions and flashes of knowledge I have had are beginning to make sense and to cohere. Those years as a child reading the Bible, for instance, so that I had most of the prophets by heart; and then the school years with my head between my fists as I took in Homer and Hesiod, Thucydides and Herodotus. I think I am beginning to see what their stories mean. And then my manhood with the lunatics, when my reading changed to Darwin, Maudsley, Hughlings Jackson – the great English strain of thought and medicine. I am starting to see patterns there as well.

  I often think of you and the girls, of course, and I wish that you were here. I also think of the lunatics in my old asylum in their locked wards. How very very far away they seem, in the deep darkness of the African night.

  Ten days from Arusha, the party began to climb up a steep but well-used track over reddish earth. After two hours, there was a cry from the front, and Thomas and Hannes, who were at the rear, ran up to see what it was. From a small clearing in the vegetation at the side of the track, the porters were looking down into the crater, jabbering excitedly to one another. Thomas could pick out the word ‘Ngorongoro’.

  For some minutes they stood in silence, looking down into the immense caldera created by the eruption of a volcano, the remaining outer rim of which formed the steep sides of the crater. The floor was green with pale grasses and patches of da
rker forests; towards one end was a soda lake that appeared to be steaming in the sunlight.

  Thomas saw Hannes fighting his emotions.

  ‘We may be the first Europeans since Baumann to see this sight,’ he said at last. ‘And he was the first ever.’

  It was difficult to know what to say; Thomas had seen nothing like it in his life, but whatever it meant to him, he felt sure it meant more to his friend. He knew that Hannes would be computing distances: thirty kilometres, fifty . . .

  ‘When it was a volcano,’ Thomas said, ‘it must—’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hannes, ‘it must have been as tall as Kilimanjaro. I am glad I have lived to see this sight, Thomas. If I died tomorrow I should have no grounds for complaint.’

  Thomas put his arm round Hannes’s shoulder. ‘I shall set an extra guard against roaming buffalo tonight.’

  Soon after midday, they found a site towards the western end of the crater to pitch camp; Hannes wanted to spend three days at Ngorongoro because its elevation at about 2, 500 metres gave him a good vantage point, and Crocker decided to lead an overnight expedition down to the floor of the crater to shoot game.

  Thomas felt a little breathless, but presumed it was the altitude. What was so beautiful to him was that the floor of the crater, with its lakes, forests and rivers, with its hillocks and pale green grasses, its mass of intimately cohabiting wildlife, had obviously been that way for thousands of years; yet the rim provided by the remnant of the giant volcano was a reminder of a previous reality that was just as solid. Time in effect was laid bare before them in its almost incalculable length; little, therefore, either human or animal, seemed important because in the length of that perspective nothing amounted to more than a handful of grass.

  ‘Come on, Midwinter, we are going down into the crater to bag some rhino,’ said Crocker. ‘I hear they have some splendid whites down there. Damnably dangerous, you know, but we shall survive if we stand our ground.’