The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  He throws a pad, a pen, and a change of clothes into a rucksack.

  At the main gates there is an ancient jeep loaded with guns, medical supplies and a rusting cage. The engine throbs with worrying volume. Esther leans against the bonnet, wearing a green vest and shorts, hair plaited tightly, a pink rucksack at her feet. She picks nervously at her fingernails. Stig puts a hamper of food into the back seat while John checks the tyres.

  ‘I’ll take the first shift,’ says Stig, and jumps into the driving seat.

  John takes the front passenger seat, and Ben and Esther climb into the back.

  They pull away.

  The red soil road stretches for miles, like a lesion splitting the land, which is dotted with baobab trees and rounded mountains known as kopjes. Ben gives up tallying them after the first hour. Occasional purple jacaranda trees and scarlet poinsettias have passed their full bloom but still light the journey with occasional luster. The seasonal rains nourish the plants, drenching the jeep twice on the trip. Once the clouds pass over, the sun dries everything in moments, as though the water never even fell.

  Esther sleeps at first. Ben is glad. He wants to concentrate on taking in this new land. He counts plenty of trees and mountains but only ninety-four other vehicles on the seven-hundred-mile round trip. Counting has always soothed him. The simplicity of ascertaining how many items there are – whether it is peas on a plate or cars on a road – somehow settles him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Esther asks sleepily.

  Ben realises he has been counting aloud, not doing it in his head. Embarrassed, he laughs it off. ‘Nothing.’ He pauses. ‘You’ve missed loads.’

  ‘Shall we play I Spy?’ she suggests.

  ‘I Spy?’ Ben glances at the mostly repetitive landscape. ‘Wouldn’t be a very long game.’

  ‘When I was a kid,’ says Esther, vest strap falling off her freckled shoulders, ‘we’d play it differently to how others do. Like you could spy things you can’t actually see. So, I might say I spy a telephone box or McDonalds or the Eiffel Tower…’

  Games without proper rules.

  Ben has played these too many times.

  ‘Wouldn’t it take forever to get the answer?’ he says.

  Esther looks at her watch, then at the land cooking in the buttery sun, and says, ‘We’ve got five hours.’

  ‘Might be less,’ says Stig. The smooth stump where his hand once was doesn’t seem to stop him from doing anything. It rests easily on the wheel. John dozes beside him, occasionally burping and making them all laugh.

  ‘Can’t be bothered with I Spy,’ says Ben.

  ‘Let’s see if this radio works, shall we?’ says Stig.

  It doesn’t, but there is an ancient cassette player. Buried beneath empty water bottles, the only tape is a faded Beatles album, which they listen to ten times over. ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ will forever take Ben back to the dusty road, to the smell of warm sweat and petrol and unfamiliarity.

  ‘What can we expect?’ Ben asks Stig.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Will these cubs be dangerous?’

  ‘Depends if we’ve been given the correct age,’ says Stig, ‘but at three months they will be pretty hefty – bigger than a large housecat. And they’ll certainly be able to give a nasty bite.’

  ‘You know the ones we rear from birth?’ says Esther. ‘I understand the intention is for them to learn to hunt and then go free – but if we kept them, you know as pets, would they be safe? Would they ever attack us, or would they always know us, and know we were the ones who brought them up so to speak?’

  ‘No matter what environment you raise a lion in,’ bellows Stig over the music, ‘you are never one hundred percent safe. They will still be wild and still act on their instincts. The need to hunt and kill never dies. No matter what. And if you get in the way of that…’

  Ben exchanges a yikes look with Esther

  ‘Still don’t fancy I Spy?’ she asks after a while.

  ‘Jesus,’ he responds gruffly, not quite sure why he feels so irritated. ‘What’s with you and that game?’

  ‘Just takes me back to when I was a kid.’

  ‘I don’t want to play a fucking game.’

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ snaps Esther. ‘It was only a suggestion.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Ben realises he sounds like a petulant child and is glad the music gives them a little privacy in the back.

  ‘Well, something is.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’ Ben regrets his harshness but being questioned about his sudden mood irritates him beyond belief.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says sadly.

  ‘So drop it then.’

  ‘You can be such a dickhead,’ Esther hisses.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, get over yourself.’ She crosses her arms. ‘I bet half the people at the project have come away from some sort of shit back home. But none of them mope about like you do.’

  Stig glances over his shoulder, so she lowers her voice, leans closer to Ben.

  ‘You should be grateful I even talk to you. Seriously.’

  Ben doesn’t know what to say. Does he really mope? He knows he hasn’t made as many friends as some of the volunteers with whom he arrived five days ago have. He just hasn’t felt the need to. Esther is the only one whose company he enjoys and now he has been a complete bastard to her. He hates being this way. He wants to enjoy being here. Maybe he shouldn’t have come. Maybe it was too soon.

  Too late. He’s here.

  ‘You don’t have to talk to me,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Okay then.’

  For fifteen minutes they ignore one another, each looking out of the window. Ben tries to think of something light to say to show he knows he was a grumpy bastard.

  Eventually Esther says, ‘Do you know what Greg said when I told him I might come here?’

  ‘What?’ asks Ben, more pleasantly.

  ‘He said, “What the fuck for? You’ll probably get eaten or catch AIDS.” Nice, eh?’

  Sounds like my dad, Ben wants to say, but doesn’t.

  Instead he laughs.

  ‘My family were dead happy about me coming here though,’ Esther says. ‘How about yours?’

  ‘Mine?’

  Ben doesn’t want to think about it. He doubts Esther would believe it if he told her what happened back home. He still can’t, even after turning it over in his mind, after taking it apart and putting it back together again a different way. It’s like the stories he used to read in his mum’s discarded magazines – tales he was sure they made up to shock.

  ‘They weren’t bothered,’ he says eventually. After a pause, he adds, ‘Okay … I spy something beginning with … b…’

  Esther scans the landscape. ‘Blackpool Tower.’

  ‘Shit! How’d you know?’ laughs Ben.

  ‘I’m a total pro at this game … Okay … I spy something beginning with A…’

  The game lasts an hour.

  The sun is dipping low in the sky as they arrive at their destination. At the small village they meet Chuma Hondo, the man who has the two cubs in a wooden building behind his café. Though English is the primary language in Zimbabwe, due to its status as a British colony, only a small percentage of the population speaks it. Chuma tells his story in Shona, one of the country’s dominant languages. Stig translates.

  Apparently, the cubs were found after their mother was shot for stealing livestock from a local farmer, and though it’s not ideal, Chuma has been keeping them in the small hut for their safety. Even as he speaks, children steal up on the other side of the slatted wall and push sticks between the gaps and yell what are clearly insults. Chuma wipes his hands on a filthy apron and shoos them away.

  ‘Right,’ says Stig. ‘Let’s get those poor buggers out of there and ready for their big journey.’

  Ben has never physically handled a lion cub and now he’s suddenly terrified. Perhaps sensing it, Esther puts a hand on
his sunburnt arm. He looks at it and then her; she is beautiful in the golden light, almost a lioness herself.

  ‘You’ll have to get close to the cubs to do this,’ says Stig.

  He and John lead the approach to the hut.

  ‘If they’re only three months old they should be manageable. But only just. And they’ll be mad as hell.’ Stig looks at them both. ‘Are you ready?’

  They nod.

  Stig opens the rickety door. The stench hits them all first. Clearly no one has cleaned up after the poor creatures. The two cubs are each strangled by a chain barely a metre long and make feeble attempts to climb the walls of their prison, then fall and swing their paws in rage and frustration. Ben follows Stig, with Esther close behind.

  Tan-brown and gold, with flecked legs, the cubs are perhaps twice as big as a large house cat, and considerably noisier. Ben didn’t expect their roars to be so powerful yet. They growl savagely at the approach of four more strangers.

  ‘I reckon they are about three months old,’ Stig says, bending down near the male, who growls and yanks on his chain. ‘They’re pretty small for their age, so they’ve probably not been fed well. But at least that means the journey back in that cage won’t be too cramped for them.’

  John adds that there’s enough tranquiliser if needed – to give them a more peaceful trip.

  Getting them into the crate that will transport them is not easy. The pair swing their paws, clawing at whoever comes near. Stig suggests two of them restrain the boy so they can first remove the girl, but he bites John – fortunately not puncturing the skin, only leaving marks – so they try to remove him first.

  ‘A brother’s love, eh?’ says Esther. ‘Just looking after his sister.’

  Once they are safely ensconced, Ben kneels and peers inside. The lioness stares back, wary and desperate. The boy cub’s growl is a low, rumbling warning that he will protect her, no matter what.

  Ben recalls the balding lions he saw six months ago, in the circus back home. How can it be six months? They had barely responded to the lion tamer’s cruel taunts, or the crack of his sharp whip. The fight had been knocked out of them. These two still have a chance to maintain theirs though.

  ‘She’s gorgeous,’ says Esther, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Look at her glaring at you.’ Esther chuckles. ‘Reckon you could tame her?’

  I could be a lion. You could tame me. Think you can get me to lie down?

  The words come to Ben softly, as though whispered in his ear.

  The small cub growls.

  ‘Isn’t she best left wild?’ Ben says quietly.

  ‘Always so serious,’ says Esther. ‘I was only messing with you.’

  ‘It was easier than we thought so we’re not going to bother sleeping here.’ Stig secures the padlock on the cage. ‘John says he’s fine to drive, so we’re gonna head back. You guys ready?’

  The small group departs, dust billowing like ghostly balloons in the jeep’s wake. The village people clamour to spy the cubs one last time, tapping on the windows and waving, and then cheering at a last snarl from the now-sleepy siblings.

  ‘What do you reckon we should call them?’ John asks after a while.

  The jeep bounces over the uneven road surface, its engine juddering occasionally as though it might die. Stig snores vigorously in the front passenger seat, and Esther has curled up in the back, her mouth sagging open as she breathes softly. The spittle on her chin catches the dusk light.

  ‘I was thinking we should maybe call the boy Chuma after the guy who saved them,’ John says. ‘You agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ben. ‘That’s a cool name.’ He thinks a moment. ‘Then I guess the girl has to be Lucy. You know, like in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.’

  ‘Nice one,’ says John.

  Ben settles back in his seat. He notices the pen and paper in his open rucksack and for a moment considers writing a letter. Who to? He certainly doesn’t want to write to his dad. Doesn’t know if he ever will. Perhaps he could write something and never send it? Perhaps if he does his moods will stop swinging so dramatically and his sleep will be less restless?

  But nothing comes to him.

  He is exhausted.

  Instead Ben looks up at where the stars trail their trek home – the sky is an ebony blanket that they decorate with dots of happiness and sadness. A year ago, he would never have seen things in such a poetic way. He would have merely counted the stars or pointed out all the constellations he recognises, but he looks at everything differently now.

  ‘Aren’t they stunning?’ says John, pulling him from his thoughts.

  ‘They are.’

  Ben doesn’t think he has ever been as happy or as miserable as he is now. He is overjoyed to have come to the place he has always wanted to visit. He can imagine his mum watching him, knowing he fulfilled the promise he made all those years ago. But wrapped up in that is what happened back home.

  When Ben thinks of the months before he came here, it makes him so sad that he is once again compelled to count the pieces of food on his plate, the maize and vegetables in his evening sadza; so sad that he once again thinks in what he has always described as mis-words; so sad that he almost wishes he had never come.

  3

  ZIMBABWE

  A Name that Won’t Be Forgotten

  Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to name his night-time lion, because then he might disappear.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Day seven begins as those before did and those after will; Ben on the hut decking in his shorts, watching his glorious sunrise, trying to adapt to the relentless heat, and to recover from another night of tossing and turning. This alone time he cherishes even more now because it is also the coolest time of day.

  The temperature has definitely increased since he arrived and has him accidentally misnaming other volunteers and needing to shower twice daily. Even the gentlest activity results in damp clothes and a salty forehead. He is glad that this time of year is the rainy season; that the brief torrential downpour each afternoon cools the skin.

  ‘How long you been up?’ Simon makes Ben jump.

  ‘Not long,’ Ben lies.

  He has become a great pretender; not so much a liar, more an evader. Since their reluctance to share that first night around the fire, even the quiet volunteers have opened up a little now. This place seems loosen them up after a few days, make them more honest about their private lives. Perhaps it is the vast space, the distance from home, or being among total strangers. Not Ben. He listens, fascinated, but says very little.

  ‘You’re an odd one, Roberts,’ says Simon.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Always in a bloody world of your own.’ He studies Ben. ‘I have my theories.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Yeah. I reckon you’re a serial killer. It’s always the quiet ones. You’ve come here to avoid the police, haven’t you?’

  Ben laughs. ‘This heat’s making you delivious.’

  ‘Delivious? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘I never said that…’ Ben blushes. His old habit is back, full force. Mis-words.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Delirious,’ says Ben after a thought.

  ‘Whatever.’ Simon laughs again. ‘Anyway, one of these nights you’re gonna reveal all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In your sleep. When you talk.’

  Ben’s heart tightens. He wishes he had his own room.

  ‘The bodies,’ laughs Simon. ‘Off for a shower, see you later.’

  Simon goes into the hut and Ben heads off to the communal lodge for breakfast. Esther is already there, with a plate of fruit and a bowl of cereal in front of her. He wonders whether to sit with her or not.

  The previous five mornings she has joined him as they eat the gritty muesli, and she always brings him coffee when they clean out the enclosures together. She saved him a space by the campfire l
ast night, patting the spot on her bench. Ben sat with her. As Esther chatted about their adventure rescuing Lucy and Chuma, Ben’s attention drifted as it so often does. When he looked up, she had joined the other volunteers to play cards. Ben knew he deserved it but didn’t want to lose his one good friend. Esther looked over at him, eyes sparking in the nightly flames.

  Did she seem interested in more than being just friends? Ben has never understood women very well. He wonders if his lack of interest fires her; that she thinks he’s playing a flirty game. His university friend Brandon – from what now seems like years ago – once had a theory about lack of interest being the best invitation.

  Ben escaped the campfire then and walked the perimeter of the enclosure fence, the night hot with musky animal scents. Round and around he walked, until his legs ached.

  ‘You okay?’ It was Esther.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re really quiet tonight.’

  ‘Just tired,’ Ben said, his usual lame excuse for everything.

  ‘Let’s sit then,’ she said, stopping at one of the many benches that line the fence. They did.

  ‘Are you mad that I called you a dickhead?’

  ‘What?’ Ben laughed. ‘When?’

  ‘In the jeep.’

  ‘God, no. I was being a dickhead.’

  ‘You know something funny,’ said Esther. ‘When I came here I left my boyfriend Greg in the middle of the night while he was sleeping, just to avoid the fight that would happen if I’d told him I was going.’

  ‘Shit. Bet he was shocked when he woke.’

  ‘I left him a note,’ she grinned. ‘Dear Greg, remember to put the bins out and the tea towels are in the middle drawer.’

  Ben laughed.

  ‘I bet he’s left the dishes soaking,’ she said.

  ‘Thoughtful of him.’

  Esther paused then. ‘There’s a bottle of wine in my room,’ she said softly.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We could share it.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ Ben said again – after an embarrassingly long pause because he could think of no other way out of it.

  Esther’s disappointed face in the dimness made him feel lousy.