by van Heerling
To my left was a cat staring into the rising sun with such concentration I thought she might be praying to a light god. Perhaps if I had any good sense I would have created the same spectacle as yesterday: the dramatic leap from the thrifty foldout with my arms pressed forward while hiding behind the cherry glow of my loosely rolled cigarette. For starters, I don’t have any sense, and also, I had yet to prep a smoke. Instead, I sat. I sat with my legs stretched the length of the plastic chair, my boney kneecaps exposed to a potential mauling.
Who am I kidding? My whole body could be a chew toy to her. I raised my coffee to my bottom lip. The steam effervesced against my face as I swallowed. She had a glint of green within her eyes that I hadn’t noticed before. I noticed this after my sip pulled her from her prayer to the sun god. She was unpretentious as she stared directly into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what to do so I smiled gently, making sure not to expose my teeth just in case it be construed as universal aggression. Her attention did not go to my mouth, but rather stayed with my eyes. I swear my smile was reciprocated, as she then maneuvered her head back to the shimmering light splintering over the mountains.
Déjà vu struck me as I turned my gaze to the mountains as well. This was my dream. I looked to my right, again expecting to see my wife, but she wasn’t there. My friend now turned to me again, seemingly acknowledging my thought. Slowly I reached for my tin full of tobacco and papers. My lioness friend was not threatened by me. And to my surprise, my guard had been slipping away. She pouted her nose in the air toward the tin just as she’d done before when smelling the tobacco smoke the first time.
“Oh, you remember this, don’t you?” I said, breaking the silence. My voice was thick. As I rolled a cigarette, she studied my process. Her eyes then rolled back up to my face as I lit it. A puff of white smoke expelled from me. Her nostrils flared delightfully as she moved closer to me, bumping the arm of the chair. I nearly toppled over. I let her smell it as I set it in front of her nose, my hand mere inches from her pink-stained mouth. Intrigued by this smell, she rolled her tongue out to lap it. Retracting my hand as fast as I could and narrowly missing the rasp that was her tongue, I said, “No, hot!”
Her head tilted toward me as she contemplated my sounds. She snorted annoyingly and sat back down on her haunches. I think she remembered the burning of her tongue on the previous ember. I pulled another drag and exhaled. She enjoyed it vicariously through me and the permeated air around us. Then, because I’m stupid, remember, I placed my hand on her back. She allowed me to pet her a bit, and then she got up and began her return to the meadow. I didn’t intend to follow her, but she stopped and waited for me. This was unfamiliar territory. The dream had come to fruition for the most part. She took me fifty yards from the perimeter of my property, further into the meadow. This was apparently the point where Tanzania and the actual Serengeti began. As far as I was concerned, it was all ’geti to me. Beyond the perimeter was a shallow valley hidden by a rim of trees and bush. Beyond that point I no longer feel safe. When first settling in, I walked most of the area around my home. As I approached this area I felt—tracked. From that point on I learned to stay on the trails that led to the village and water supply.
Standing next to me, her back at my waist, I soon realized why she stopped. At the tree line sat three cold-faced lions. A male in the middle and two lionesses. To say they were jovial to see us would be a funny twist of truth. Soon my friend mirrored their unfriendly posturing. I stood there like an oaf.
No wonder I felt like I was being tracked when I had journeyed this way. For all intents and purposes, I probably was. But this time, this moment, was immeasurably worse. Was I breakfast? Had I been betrayed by my new friend? A tremor of terror struck me. I felt the bodily fluids drain from my face. She must have figured out what I was thinking because she flanked my leg and nuzzled my hand with her head. I felt better, but not confident I was going to walk away safe. Not a flinch from the audience of three. Her actions toward me had distilled their disapproval into more of a fury as they glowered.
Submissively, she bowed her head, tucking her tail in close to her legs as she walked the fifty yards to her—guardians? I raised my hand as she tentatively looked back at me before disappearing through trees and down into the ravine. The females had followed her. And as well as for me, the king of beasts stood squared to me not fifty yards from my boney knees. My gnawable, boney knees. He took one step forward. His entire coat shook as he stepped into a definite and calculated pose. No need for a lion-to-human translation. He did not scan the land around me. He did not flinch. His address was to me. A gentle breeze wisped through the king’s mane. As if made of stone dressed with russet fur, he did not budge. Rock-solid. His chin rose and nostrils flared, just like my friend. But his was a malevolent gesture. He’d deciphered my scent. A scent he wouldn’t soon forget. The roar that now came from his mouth was more of a guttural rebuke. I was an annoyance to him. Then, although moderated, the second roar seemed to concentrate within my inner ear and did not penetrate much further than the meadow. This warning was for me alone, not for the surrounding African audience. It was acute, painful.
Unknown to me, until I felt the warmth percolating through the fabric of my drawers, a splash of fright had wetted my leg. I was able to halt it but wasn’t going to make any promises if another step was taken. His scruff was pinkish with blood, similar to my visitor. Even if he may have already eaten, it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t still feast upon the problem at hand; his belly was capacious, no doubt from several large meals in his lifetime. I’m sure half a zebra and an unclean washed-up schmuck could fit just fine, albeit snugly. On the other hand, he could simply maul me just to prove a point. Either way, I was at his mercy. Couldn’t run to the house, and even if I could, I doubt the walls could hold a four-hundred-pound cat from a determined entrance.
Calculatingly, his shoulders commandeered his body back to the tree line, his man-lion parts swaggering from side to side. Then he was gone. Soaking in my surroundings, I felt the high grass at my fingertips and heard White-tailed Swallows singing their songs. Up to this point, I had not known they were cheerfully crooning to their mates while my life, as seemingly inconsequential as it is, hung in the balance. I imagine had the now-absentee king decided to tear me limb from limb, these cheery birds of the Serengeti might have improvised a lovely melody while I wailed and pleaded for my existence. And here two hundred yards from my own home, I peed myself; I peed myself uncontrollably.
Weeks had passed, and I had many encounters with the lioness. And for this I knew I would have to answer to my dear friend sooner or later. Abasi, as I had said before, is an honorable man. Judging by his scarred chest and the razor-thin white marbled flesh under his left eye—a keepsake from a knife fight from years past still lingering—one would think he was a man of ill intentions. But these imperfections hid kindness.
Abasi’s body absorbed the heat of the midafternoon as he walked shirtless toward my desolate hut. He was stronger than his son, of course, still in his prime, if a bit on the waning side. Dangling from his mouth lurched a long piece of wild grass. Within the grasp of his rough, thick-skinned hands hung two bags filled with fresh vegetables and fruit.
I had retreated to the porch, which consisted of sheet metal riveted to the roof and two long stakes on either end. In the middle the metal bowed generously, which was helpful during the rains: water concentrating into one spot allowed me to shower if desired, without having to commingle with the community at the lake. But this luxury was seldom. I thanked my friend as I took the produce, setting it just inside the door. As he sat beside me, he was troubled. Not in an alarmed way, just in a way that a friend knows. I passed an ale, hoping it would better put him at ease.
After a sip he surveyed the meadow and sighed as he turned to me. “Tell me, friend, what is this I hear in the tobacco fields, the market, and from my own son?”
“Well, Abasi, being that I don’t usually attend social gatherings within the t
obacco fields, or the market, and, well, I haven’t enjoyed your hospitality in weeks, you tell me. What is it that you hear?”
Abasi stared at his bare feet, dry and cracked, as he gently smiled at his stubborn American friend’s coy disposition.
“Have I shared about the time Sherri and I went on a picnic?”
“I can’t say that you have.”
“Absko was but a bump within his mother’s belly. She was so beautiful this day. Her beauty shined each day she walked this earth, but this day in particular.” I could tell that Abasi could see her so clearly as he continued with his story. It pained me because I knew that deep within him he still hurt tremendously from his loss, even though sixteen years had passed. “I helped her down a ravine and soon we came upon a lovely grassy knoll under a Strangler Fig tree, where adjacent to our setting I did pluck the most perfect bloom from a Sausage tree for her to set in her hair.” His lips found another sip of the ale. “We were enjoying berries from her mother’s garden. I can still see her smile.”
Abasi paused a moment. His chapped lips receded from his teeth, exposing them to the day. His brow furrowed pleasantly, but then his countenance turned repentant and remorseful. “I was rubbing her belly and had my ear to her when I felt a shutter in her body. Her palm urgently pounded my back; her jovial enchantment drained away and was replaced by terror. As I gazed upon her delicate face, it was pale and fearful. Then I heard that wicked deep growl that can only be the supreme of hunters. It was the matriarch and her adolescents that numbered two. Had I reacted in haste, we would surely have been finished. I know this to be true. They were hungry indeed.
“The matriarch was perhaps brazen in her training of her young. Instead of pouncing when we were unaware, it almost seemed that she wanted us to witness our demise. To this day, I do not know why they had not encountered us by surprise. I do not dwell on this, but I am thankful for that oversight.” He gripped the ale bottle with both palms as he recalled his story, his upper body trembling just the faintest bit as he continued. “You know the correct outcome of this story in part as you have seen some of my scarred body.”
He raised his left leg and showed me his inner thigh, which had been mutilated, only to heal in a contorted condition. “This was the most devastating injury of that encounter, I am happy to say in retrospect, for it could have been many times worse had I not had the rifle at my side.” His fingers delicately massaged the once torn flesh as he looked at me.
“As she approached, haste now came upon me and I reached for my weapon. The shell was absent from the chamber, and the time it took to cock the weapon was the moment she pounced upon me. Being young, I was quick to my feet but wasn’t fast enough to aim the rifle at her. Besides, she was now too close. I can still feel her breath and sheer strength as she sprung forward. I came down hard and fast against her crown with the butt of the rifle. A shot fired into the blue; had the sky been made of glass the shot would have splintered it. The anguish and fear I felt pumped through my veins.
“The youths, after the crack of the shot, did not approach us, but the matron, though dazed from the blow, was far from retreating as her jaws latched onto my leg as you can see here.” He pointed to a healed puncture mark. “I fell to the ground and knew that I was going to die this day. This thought did not press me as much as the regret I felt for Sherri. For she would soon meet a similar plight. With the lioness’s bite as I said, I had fallen and with that I lost grip of the weapon. I reached for the lion’s face and feebly poked and prodded for her eyes, but she was simply too overwhelming. My blows were formidable had they landed against another man’s body, but at best for this cat, they were glancing, if only a feeble distraction to her training.
“I heard another crack of the rifle against the blue sky and a vibration through my nemesis. Then another and another. Sherri, with her pregnant belly, had cocked and laid three shots into the flank of the matriarch. The cat released her grip. The determination of the hunt faded within her eyes as she gazed into mine not half an arm’s length away. Slowly, she hobbled away from us.
“Sherri cocked the rifle again as I lay bleeding. With the beast in her crosshairs, she fired again but missed as the hunters retreated into a thick of trees. I raised my hand, asking her to let them be. It was done. I knew the lioness was abiding by nature’s law and that her impulse to hunt us was my fault, because I was unaware of my place. To her, we were fair game.”
I pondered this theory for a moment as I continued to listen.
“Sherri was weeping as she set the rifle at my side. Her one hand groped me for injuries not yet seen while she plunged the other hand into my inner thigh wrapped with her cloth napkin. I winced because of the pain, of course, but mostly because of the fear within her eyes as she feverishly managed me. She ripped off my shirt and secured it round my hemorrhaging thigh.
“Debris was strewn about us from the Strangler Fig and shortly she procured a decent crutch that we may start our trek back to the village. You know the rest of the story as I am sitting here.” He was somber, collected in his thoughts as he finished his ale. I handed him another, and he gladly accepted.
“I have two regrets that are separate from the point I must impart to you today. I failed her that day by not protecting her. I feel deep shame that I was not strong enough to protect her—”
“Yes, but—” I interrupted, attempting to highlight his considerable contributions that day. He raised his hand to me, not interested in my justifications to make him feel more at ease.
“And the other,” he continued, “is the day Absko was born. This, of course, as I have told you in the past, was the day Sherri left this world. In her battle of birth, I could not help her. I watched her die as the doctor feebly attended to her. These are two regrets I have and must live with.”
“Yes, but Abasi, how can you blame yourself for something that was fated, as your people have said?”
“I do not expect you to understand. This is not why I have told you what I have today. The reason for my story is we have a place in life. We belong to a system, and every piece has its place. That day, this lioness was doing as she was supposed to—hunt. As we did as we were supposed to, which was defend what is ours. But, my friend, what I hear in my village I do not like, this talk about a man who intermingles with a wild cat. The one that hand-feeds and pets it like it’s a mere house cat. This is not your place. It will end badly. For you are tempting a fate for which I lived just barely, as you can see from my wounds.”
He was quiet for some time.
“Abasi, hand-fed? No, I have not done any such thing.” Then I thought about her licking the tobacco. Maybe Absko construed this as hand-feeding. “You don’t know what has transpired.” I continued, “You don’t know what I have experienced. We met in a dream, we share your tobacco.”
“So it is true what I have heard. They say you have the lion’s tongue.”
I laughed gently, surmising that Absko’s tight lips must have loosened.
“What do you suppose you will gain from this friendship?” he asked defensively.
“Nothing,” I said plainly. “Like I said, you do not know the truth. You are my dearest friend but have allowed yourself to be strayed here by your own demons and hearsay.”
He did not appreciate my blunt honesty as his chest plumed, eager for verbal retaliation, but then he simmered, perhaps remembering my wisdom in past conversations.
“Then, my American friend, please enlighten me as to why I am wrong and how it is that you will not be killed?”
“I never said that I would not be killed. This I cannot promise, for if she had the desire, I would have been lion waste weeks ago. She comes to me a few minutes before daybreak. We enjoy your tobacco, and sometimes a saucer of coconut milk. I may pour some ale in a dish. We wrestle for a time if desired, and then nap,” I indicated toward my hut.
“You allow this animal in your home?” he asked intently.
“Sure, not that I really have a choice in t
he matter. I huddle up in my bed, and she naps on the floor. She is self-reliant. She will not let me brush the knots from her coat, on the rare occasion that there are knots, nor will she take a blanket during a chill night.”
Abasi scoffed at my ignorance. “Tell me about this dreaming you have.”
“Not much to tell. I dream vividly now. My nightmares are all but gone. She and I speak to one another.”
“Like English-speak,” he laughed deridingly.
“No, not like English-speak. It is more of a conceptual communication. Thought transference. Somehow I am able to translate her concepts into a language I get. And she can do the same. Abasi, I don’t expect you to understand. Frankly, I probably don’t totally understand. It’s more than what I am saying, but I can’t quite communicate it, I guess, because I am trying to describe the communicative properties of one world to another where the properties are entirely different.”
“Absko was right,” he said mockingly.
“What?”
“He said that he was going to need a new English teacher soon.” He smiled.
“Hmm, yes, maybe. Well, we both know that I haven’t been his teacher for a while now. Mostly we just bounce philosophy off each other’s heads. Besides, the schoolhouse seems to be doing a far better job than I could. By the way, so much for him keeping my secret, huh?”
“He’s just concerned. He thinks very highly of his mysterious American friend that has fled his own country in search of simplicity. Which I find ironic in that the complication that you so desire to avoid is catching you up and you have yet to recognize this.” I knew there was truth to what he was saying, but at the time I did not want to listen. “I am hurt that you did not come to me with your new friendship,” he said as he wiped droplets off his sweating ale.