He heard her say quietly, ‘We cannot.’
He stopped in the doorway – mortified. He remembered the injured woman on the road from the airport; this was a society where childbearing defined being a woman. What had Felice said about the importance she attached to family? He turned towards her. She had stopped clearing the table and stood with her back to him, her head bowed.
‘I’m sorry. A very intrusive question. I should’ve realised.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s OK.’ She took another deep breath. ‘Sorry . . . seeing the children . . . and then your words. Stanley had mumps . . . we had tests . . . it’s unlikely. Maybe with treatment; but it’s expensive. I don’t know.’
He fiddled with the focus ring on his binoculars, unable to think of any comforting comment. Felice started tidying up again – with vigour. She marched into the kitchen with her load and said, ‘It’s not so bad. We share children in our community. That’s ample comfort.’
Michael was still standing, feeling stupid, in his bedroom doorway as she came back and gathered the glasses.
‘Mrs Magara thinks it’s because I’m too thin. She says there’s nothing to feed a growing baby.’ She cast him a forced smile and then turned away. ‘Stanley’s accepted it, so that’s good.’ Her voice cracked on the last word.
She left the glasses on the table, hurried into the kitchen and stayed there.
Six
About an hour out from the hospital, on a stretch of road bordered by tall grasses, a wooden boom blocked their way. They stopped and Stanley turned off the engine.
‘What’s this?’ Michael asked.
‘It’s the entrance to the National Park,’ Stanley said.
They waited; Stanley and Felice seemed content to sit until something happened. Stanley looked worn out: after getting up in the night to attend a patient, he had been at the hospital until late morning. Michael moved forward in his seat to ventilate his back from the heat. Still Stanley and Felice remained silent and stilled. To Michael they appeared to have settled into a state of suspension; entered it together; he felt their unity. Lonely, he could wait no more and said with a jocular air, ‘Is the barrier automatic?’
‘Maybe we’ve not been heard,’ Stanley said, starting at Michael’s voice. He blipped the horn. The grasses to the right parted and an elderly man in a tatty, khaki uniform and floppy hat came out.
Long greetings ensued, followed by a chat in the local language which looked likely to go on for hours. Michael heard his name and the warden said, ‘Ah,’ and nodded his head towards Michael. Michael noticed that the top of the man’s hat was missing; just a frayed rim where the top had been fixed in long bygone years.
Losing the gist of the conversation, Michael asked Felice, ‘What’s he saying?’
‘He says that you’re the first tourist to pass his gate in one year.’
‘Let’s hope the gate isn’t rusted shut.’
‘He says that we’ve made him very happy by coming to the park. He’s hoping that many tourists will follow. He remembers Queen Elizabeth when she visited Uganda in 1954. He hopes that one day she’ll return so that he can open the barrier for her.’ Felice suppressed a smile before she translated again. ‘He’d like a job as a keeper of the entrance boom to Windsor Safari Park.’
Stanley seemed to reassure the warden of Michael’s endeavours on the latter point and then launched into a pressing enquiry. The warden frowned – Michael thought he conveyed a little uncertainty in his reply.
‘Stanley has asked about poachers and bandits but it’s all right; the warden says they’ve had no serious incidents in a long time.’
‘But?’ Michael asked.
Felice’s attention had been drawn to the warden. He had became animated again and pointed towards some location over and beyond the grasses ahead and started snorting, then danced around in a circle, holding both hands up in front of his face. When Michael leant forward, grinning at the warden’s antics, the warden minced into the grasses and came out in a crouch, at speed.
Stanley intervened, thanking him, but the warden was not to be interrupted and pawed the ground with his right leg whilst making hissing sounds. Flailing arms followed, indicating some sort of pandemonium. The warden then snapped back his head and rolled his eyes.
Felice translated again, barely containing her amusement. ‘Stanley asked where we can find lions. The warden says there was a kill yesterday, quite nearby, and he’s given you a demonstration of how it happened.’
Stanley thanked the warden again and the man relaxed, exhausted from his exertions. He beamed at Michael, who clapped his hands a couple of times to show his appreciation. The warden disappeared into the high grass again. Michael expected him to reappear in an encore, perhaps from another angle and on all fours, but he came back shortly in a formal mood, with an enormous cashbook.
The warden passed the book through to Michael, opening it as he did so. A large, pressed spider fell onto Michael’s lap. ‘Ah, a fossilised spider from the Miocene epoch. It must be more than a year since anyone filled this in,’ he said, gingerly lifting the spider by a leg but losing it on the floor when the limb broke. At the top of the page ‘Year of 1983’ had been written in faint charcoal and the columns renamed: ‘date’, ‘vehicle registration’, ‘name’, ‘nationality’ and ‘passport number’.
The warden examined Michael’s entry carefully and was satisfied. He spoke to Stanley again.
‘He would be happy if you could give him a pen or a pencil,’ Stanley said.
Michael felt in his camera bag and passed a ballpoint to the warden.
‘He says he’s now ready for all the tourists,’ Stanley said.
As they drove away, to a salute from the warden standing to attention by the lifted boom, Michael remarked, ‘That was most amusing.’
Stanley signalled his agreement with a tightening of his cheek muscles, but Felice said, ‘He’s a faithful man; a good man. He didn’t leave his post through all the years of terror. Many good people didn’t leave their posts at that time. They . . .’ She stopped and swallowed. Michael waited for her to collect herself. ‘Sometimes he hid in the grasses while the soldiers came through with their machine guns to kill the elephants. In an African country, when soldiers start shooting the elephants you know it’s time to hide.’
‘Are there any elephants left?’ Michael asked.
‘A few. Some hid in the forests, but they’re still afraid.’
‘Did you have to flee as well?’
‘We stayed low and prayed. We were spared. God took some others; others we knew well,’ she said, speaking louder, as if to prevent emotion cracking her voice.
‘You mean the soldiers killed them. You can’t bring God in,’ Michael said, and then wished he hadn’t. Why couldn’t he resist scoring points on anything religious?
She paused and then replied, ‘What I said is what it means for us. Don’t shoot hope, Michael. It will backfire on you one day. No one can live without hope.’
Michael wasn’t sure about that. He felt that once upon a time he had relied rather too much on hope.
Stanley said something to Felice in their language. He seemed cross. Felice answered succinctly in what sounded like an acceptance of whatever he had said.
Then Stanley stopped the vehicle to let a dung beetle struggle across the road rolling its oversized load. ‘One of my teachers was shot dead during those years,’ he said. ‘It’s always the elephants and the teachers.’
As the high grasses thinned out a wide vista opened up: a gently undulating plain of richly hued savannah, dotted with the delicate forms of acacias looking like ballet dancers in pirouette. The sky above had altered, as if they had burst through into a vast, glassy dome; entered a bubble from a primordial past. A sliver of brightness, miles away, marked the location of a lake. Behind the thin gleam were the suggested forms of hills and mountains. Michael considered it a uniquely African landscape and it made him want to take wing and soar; to gaze and gaze, knowing that
he would never be satiated. He thought the sight might represent an archetype of landscape perfection, lighting up some long-dormant neural network in the visual cortex; a plexus laid down many millennia ago when humanity was young and looked out for the first time with a nascent appreciation of beauty, and considered this landscape sublime.
But his guidebook said that there was a ‘sting in this vale of paradise’. The human population had long been ‘forced out by the tsetse, a fly that carries trypanosoma brucei’. A parasite with the power of hypnosis, thought Michael, the power to cause men to succumb to the fatal slumber of sleeping sickness. A Gaian guardian against humanity.
They drew up beside an intensely green pool sunk in the plain. Stanley said, quite animatedly, ‘Let’s walk on the stepping stones to the other side.’ He paused. ‘But look again – the stepping stones are hippos!’
A hippo raised itself with a sucking sound, extracting itself from the jelly-like pond. It yawned, jaws infinitely expansive, displaying the cavern of its peach-coloured mouth before sinking back again with a contented grunt. Birds stepped precisely amongst the water hyacinths around the edge of the pool: egrets, white as lilac; shimmering ibises; jet black crakes; jacanas (handsome in their tightly fitting chestnut waistcoats). A small flock of powder-blue cordon bleus flitted on the bank, dipping their rose-thorn-like beaks into the water. In a stand of bulrushes canary-yellow weaverbirds threaded their nests with grass braid.
‘It’s nature exuberant, unbound,’ Michael breathed.
‘There you are – we’ve brought you to the real Africa,’ Felice said. ‘Not that we Africans get to see much of it ourselves. You have to have spare cash to come here.’
Nearby they found the site of the lion kill that the warden had enacted, but the remains had been left to squabbling vultures and a hopeful jackal.
‘That’s a jackal, Stanley; not a hyena,’ Felice said. Michael saw Stanley glance at Felice with a half smile. Some private joke.
Large trees marked the location of the rest camp: six thatched rondavels, two grass shower enclosures, a lone flagstaff with no halyard, a simple outdoor barbecue grill made of stone. They parked by a sign which read ‘All visitors must report here. By order’, their tyres pressing crisp lines in the pristine dust.
A young man in a warden’s outfit, well ironed – particularly along the crease of his shorts, the epaulets at his shoulders and the flaps of his shirt pockets – stood gawping at them in the doorway of the camp office. He appeared frozen to the spot. Stanley got out to greet him. The slam of the vehicle door closing activated the warden as if it had provided proof that he was not seeing an apparition. He ran forward with arms outstretched to embrace Stanley, but then gripped Stanley’s proffered arm, bending at his waist as if giving supplication to a long-awaited rescuer.
‘Thank the Almighty God, I’m saved!’ the warden cried.
Michael looked around a little nervously for whatever they were saving the warden from.
‘What’s happened?’ Stanley asked.
‘That is the problem. Nothing’s happened. I wish for happenings. Every day I get up, wash in the shower, iron my uniform, put on my uniform, make sure no animal or insect has entered the guest cottages and then – nothing. I sit in my uniform. I walk up and down a little in my uniform. No one comes. The animals graze. The insects make buzzing. The sun gets hot. The same; every day.’
Michael felt some sympathy. ‘You’re as isolated as a man in a lighthouse out here.’
The warden turned to Michael, transferring his hold onto him. ‘Ah, I’ve seen a lighthouse in a book! I’m the lighthouse keeper. This empty place,’ he swung his arm out to encompass the wavy plain, ‘is the sea.’
‘Have you no transport?’ Stanley asked, getting down to practicalities.
‘I have that – over there.’ The warden pointed with his chin at a dilapidated Land Rover with its bonnet in a thorn bush. ‘There’s not enough fuel, but even if I had enough I cannot leave, in case a tourist arrives when I’m gone. Then I would lose my job.’ He frowned, contemplating his dilemma. ‘I’m ready to lose my job but the tourist may die. Right here.’ He bared his teeth at Michael to indicate the type of death a tourist might suffer. ‘I was due to be relieved in February but my relief never came. Have you books? Don’t leave without giving me books. I’m an educated man.’
They were interrupted by a piercing scream. Felice had been inspecting a cottage and now came hurrying towards them. ‘Ooah, there’s a snake! There’s a long big snake!’
She went to Stanley as if seeking comfort, but he had turned to the warden who was saying, ‘Ha, there are many snakes – this is a national park for snakes! Let me identify it. Just give me your description. I came top of the class for identification. The most dangerous is Dendroaspis jamesoni kaimosae, the black mamba. You’ll need twelve ampoules of anti-venom for that one, but we’ve only two ampoules in the first aid.’ He turned to Michael. ‘It’s disgraceful, sir. I have written this in my reports.’
Felice still looked shaken. Michael wanted to go and put his arms around her, but Stanley was looking impatiently at the warden. ‘Spare us your nature lesson. You’ve not been checking the cottages often enough. Your boredom has made you lazy. My wife is frightened.’
The warden looked mortified. ‘Please, let me receive your forgiveness.’
Michael understood: it was not the African way to display wrath. Stanley must have been especially provoked.
‘Come, please,’ the warden said. ‘We’ll go to another cottage and see if it’s free of snakes.’ He indicated the rondavel next to his office.
‘No, that’s the best cottage,’ Felice said, composed again, pointing back to the cottage she had run from. ‘It has a good view for our guest. If you chase the snake away then we can go there.’
The warden’s eyes widened. He held his hands together as if in prayer. ‘The cottage over here is more suitable,’ he pleaded.
‘We’ll stay where my wife prefers,’ Stanley said, and started striding towards the cottage.
The warden hurried after him. ‘Please sir! It’s dangerous. I’ve read this in class.’
‘Get a stick,’ Stanley said.
The warden ran to his office and came back clasping a long barrelled gun with a cracked wooden butt. ‘It has no bullets but the snake will be frightened.’
‘Get a stick!’
The warden returned again with a pole, which Stanley seized. While Stanley strode forward the warden followed closely behind, making pleading expressions to Felice to stop her wild husband. They arrived in time to see the snake gliding away, taking on an angular form as it slid down the steps of the cottage, its skin like a sequined cloak of tiny, dark, lacquered stones. Michael was stunned at its length: its head had long disappeared around the side of the cottage before the tail snatched off the porch.
‘Now you’re safe,’ said the warden, his voice squeaky with relief.
‘You will check the rooms before we go in,’ Stanley ordered.
‘There’ll be nothing alive in there, sir, if the snake has been living there. You’re safe to enter, please.’
Stanley turned on the warden again but Felice put her hand out towards him. ‘I think you’re afraid. It’s OK. What’s caused you to lose your courage?’
‘Madam, you’ve identified the problem! I’m fearful of the animals.’
Michael found himself chortling. ‘A game warden who’s terrified of animals? I’m going to dine out on this for years.’
They all turned to him as he shook with laughter. Felice giggled, and then they were all away, the warden baying like a rutting zebra, and Stanley acknowledging such absurdity by nodding his head sagely.
The warden lit fires for washing and cooking, and attended to them keenly, making amends for his previous failings. Night fell fast, and they sat around a fire under a glittering sky, roasting chicken and sweet potatoes. Stanley was quiet, looking out into the darkness. Michael guessed that he was wondering where his b
rother was now: out there somewhere. Cut off.
Felice was melancholy until they had eaten, but then said, with what came across as forced cheeriness, ‘This reminds me of those days when our elders told stories around the fires in the kraal.’ She looked up. ‘What story do you want, Michael? I can tell you of beasts that swallowed whole villages, or of men who fell into the lands of the dead through holes in the ground, or of the girl who wanted the new white teeth. You choose.’
Michael looked at the girl with the wide white smile. ‘The girl who wanted the new white teeth.’
She looked into the fire and recited her story. ‘In the time of our ancestors, the young girls of a village made a journey together to ask our God, Ruhanga, for white teeth. But there was a girl of the village whose stepmother was cruel and kept her hard at work, never gave her enough to eat and dressed her in old tattered skins. She worked her so hard she could not go with her friends. But one night the girl slipped away on her own. She walked all night, and as the dawn was breaking she met Ruhanga himself, looking like a kind old chief.
‘Ruhanga said to her, “Little maid, where are you going?”
‘She answered, “I have been living with my stepmother and she wouldn’t let me come with the other girls to ask you for new teeth, and so I have come myself.”
‘Ruhanga took pity on her and gave her not only new white teeth but the smoothest skin, oiled and scented, and clothed her with new clothes, brass armlets and anklets, and adorned her with beaded ornaments.
‘Then, like a good father, Ruhanga saw her safely back to her village, but as he left he said, “Little maid, I command you to never smile or laugh again.” This he said to test her obedience to him.
‘Her stepmother accused her of stealing, or of selling the family cattle, in order to afford such finery, but the other villagers were impressed and soon a man of good standing wed her. But the girl never smiled or laughed.’
Stanley was no longer looking out into the dark but was listening to his wife. Michael thought he looked on her with pride; and so he should: his wife who forgave his stolid solemnity, his wife who forgave his infertility, his wife who was loyal and faithful.
The Ghosts of Eden Page 26