Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Who’s Mr. Palmer?”

  “Our white hunter.”

  “The red-faced man with the beautiful blue eyes?”

  “I hadn’t thought about his eyes.”

  She smiled. “No, I suppose not. They are beautiful, though.” She offered him a cigarette. “Have one?”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re doing something the Belgians wouldn’t, just going into the tabu district,” she said.

  “I thought they made a search.”

  “One day. The Belgian rabbit in charge was afraid to stay all night. I offered to stay with him, too.”

  “That would be an inducement.”

  “Rather! Instead he offered to take me to Stanleyville.”

  Jay laughed. “You can hardly blame him.”

  “Why?”

  “He probably wanted to show you off. You’re quite beautiful.”

  “Please, let’s don’t have any of that,” she said.

  “All right.”

  “I’m so tired of that,” she said.

  “I was just trying to explain the Belgian.”

  “I don’t want him explained. Let’s talk of something else. What do you do?”

  Jay told her he was photographer and general handy man for the expedition. The Totos cleared the luncheon table. Herbert finished his food and went back to work. He began pointing out things for the blacks to take in the tent. Jay felt fine. The gimlet and the food and the pretty woman made him feel fine. He felt so fine he began to hope the hunters would have good luck with the gorillas. All except Lew Cable.

  One of the Totos came up to the table. “Bwana want to see gorilla bed?” he asked.

  “Do you know where one is?”

  “Yes, bwana.”

  Jay asked Mrs. Salles, “Would you like to see it?”

  “Oh, yes. I’d love to.”

  Herbert was standing by the tent. He had been listening. “I wouldn’t go, ma’am,” he said.

  She stared at him. His white face was determined. “Why not?” she asked.

  “The bed may be occupied.”

  “Mr. Nichols will be along.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to go,” Herbert said.

  “I’m the best judge of that.”

  “Very well,” Herbert said. “But I shall go, too.”

  Jay wasn’t very clear what the conversation meant. He got the Springfield and a Leica camera from his tent. Then he told Toto to go ahead. The boy led them back into the bamboo along the elephant path. The stalks were over their heads and Jay again had the impression of walking along a corridor. He walked with Eve Salles behind Toto. The path was muddy. He glanced back and saw Herbert following them.

  “He’s really coming,” he said.

  “Who?” she asked.

  He made a gesture with his head.

  “Oh, Herbert! He’s always coming.”

  “Why doesn’t he join us?”

  “He’d rather sulk along.” She smiled at Jay’s puzzled expression. “It’s very silly. He’s really Lucien’s man. My husband’s. He delegated him to protect me while he was in the Ituri.”

  “Doesn’t he think I can protect you?”

  She laughed. “But it’s you he’s protecting me from.”

  Jay suddenly understood. “So that’s how it is.”

  “Yes.” Her face became solemn. “That’s how it is.”

  They went on along the path. It was warm and a white steam rose from the bamboo. They could see patches of sky through the mist. Lucien was not very trusting, Jay thought. Maybe the French were that way. He smiled. It was funny.

  “Don’t you get tired of him?” he said.

  “I did at first. Now I’m used to him. He’s rather like a dog.”

  “I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Now I think he’s in love with me,” she said.

  “Near by, bwana,” Toto said.

  They had crossed half the plateau. There was marsh now, and the bamboo grew in clumps. Over the marsh was the big gorilla mountain where the pygmies had wanted to go, the forest solid-looking and dark. There was no wind.

  “Soon beds,” Toto said.

  “Where?”

  “You wait, bwana. I find them.”

  They waited. Toto obviously had been told where the beds were. Probably the pygmies had told him. He went around one of the clumps of bamboo. Jay looked at the woman. She was very beautiful. Maybe Herbert was in love with her. It was a funny thing to say, though. Especially to a stranger. Some women had a complex about men being in love with them. He hoped she wasn’t one of those.

  Toto came back across a corner of the marsh. He was grinning with excitement. “Come, bwana,” he called.

  They followed a line of coarse grass across the marsh. The grass held up their feet. Herbert followed them. Toto went into the bamboo on the other side of the marsh, pushing aside the tall shoots. Suddenly Jay was conscious of a strong fetid odor. Ahead of them were three gorilla beds, and further along were two more. They were flattened piles of vines and leaves and ferns. The two further beds were close together, but the others were apart. There was dung in all the beds.

  “Do they always sleep on the ground?” Eve Salles asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought they slept in trees.”

  “They don’t go into trees except for food.”

  She stared at the beds. “They’re interesting, aren’t they?”

  “Not very.”

  “No, they’re not. Not really.”

  Jay saw how the gorillas made the beds. They sat and pulled the surrounding vegetation around them until they had a nest. It was simple. “Those two together are for mama and papa,” he said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “They’re supposed to be monogamous.”

  “And they have three children?”

  “Yes. Or else some in-laws.”

  Herbert said, “I don’t like this at all.” He had come up to them and was looking at the beds. He had been frightened alone in the thick bamboo. “What if they should come back?”

  “They won’t,” Jay said. “They don’t sleep twice in the same beds.”

  “But if they should?” Herbert persisted.

  “We’d run like hell.”

  Mrs. Salles had a nice throaty laugh. “Do be brave, Herbert.”

  “I don’t like it at all,” Herbert said.

  Jay took some pictures of the beds. Then he took a picture with Toto standing by one of the beds. He doubted if they would turn out. He did not understand the Leica very well. Coming out of the bamboo, Eve Salles picked up a cleanly broken bamboo shoot the size of her wrist.

  “Did a gorilla do this?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “They must be very strong.”

  Herbert stared at the broken shoot. There were marks of the gorilla’s teeth on the end. The shoot made a great impression on him. “I don’t like this,” he said.

  Mrs. Salles said to Jay, “They do give you a queer feeling.”

  “They make you feel small.”

  “Very small.”

  They came to the marsh, now covered with sunlight that made them blink. On the gorilla mountain the sun made the forest a bright green. Toto led the way to the elephant path. In one place it was necessary to pass over a rectangle of mud. Jay went across first, then stood on a mound of grass and reached back for Mrs. Salles’s hand. He lifted her across. For an instant he lost balance and her body came tight against his. She pushed herself away angrily.

  “Must you do that?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “I got off balance.” He smiled at her furious eyes. “I wasn’t making a pass.”

  “I should slap you.”

  “Go ahead.” He began to feel angry. “But I wasn’t making a pass.”

  She examined his face and her mouth softened. “I do believe the man’s telling the truth.”

  He said an
grily, “Next time you can wade through the mud.”

  “It’s the Belgians,” she said. “They’ve made me suspicious.”

  “I’m not interested in the Belgians. Or in you.”

  “I do believe you’re being truthful.”

  “Let’s move along,” Jay said.

  They were silent on the way to camp. So she did have a seduction complex, Jay thought. Herbert, and now him. Most women who thought all men were trying to make them were homely. The complex was a compensation. But occasionally a pretty woman got the idea. Then there was trouble because about nine tenths of the men were trying to make them and the disinterested ones suffered. She was going to make camp life very swell.

  He halted by the dining tent. “I’m sorry I got angry,” he said.

  “It was my fault.”

  “Now I must work,” he said.

  “Thank you for the walk.”

  “I have to work all afternoon,” he said. “But I’m sure the others will be back soon.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they will,” she said.

  CHAPTER 6

  IT WAS DUSK when the hunters reached camp, appearing like muddy ghosts out of the mist hanging over the plateau. Jay came out of his tent when he heard their voices. He could not see them at first. They were hidden by the white mist and the smoke of the campfires. Then he saw the professor and Bill and two of the Somali boys, and behind them Cable, walking with a heavy limp, and three pygmies, and finally Mr. Palmer and Mulu. They moved slowly through the mist, mud-covered and weary.

  “Any luck?” Jay asked as Mr. Palmer passed him.

  “Not a bloody thing.”

  Bill had gone with the professor to his tent. Then he came back. “Mrs. Salles?” he asked, indicating her tent.

  “Yes.”

  “Prof would like to see her.”

  Jay brought her to the professor’s tent. The professor was lying on the bed, a blanket over his legs, his head propped by a rolled blanket. His face was gray and tired. He turned his head and smiled at Mrs. Salles.

  “I see you got permission,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s fine. But it may be two weeks before we reach the Ituri.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” she said, “now I’m sure I can get there.”

  The professor smiled. His head, with the pleasant, round face and the fine brow and the eyes with the smile lines at the corners and the kind mouth, made Jay think of a portrait he’d seen of an English statesman. It was Pitt or Edmund Burke, he thought. Anyway, there was that same feeling of nobility.

  “Have you made her comfortable, Jay?” the professor asked.

  Jay’s eyes met hers. He let her speak. “Mr. Nichols has been very nice.”

  “Good.”

  She began talking with the professor about the expense of the expedition into the Ituri. She wanted to pay a share. The professor told her that Lew Cable was financing the expedition. She said she would like to pay him. Jay went out with Bill. It was none of their business.

  “I’m worried about him,” Bill said.

  “He does look bad.”

  “He’s too old for such walking.”

  Mud had caked on Bill’s clothes. The clothes were wet, too. Thorns had scratched his hands and face. There was mud on his face.

  “Was it very bad?” Jay asked.

  “Terrible. We crawled most of the time.”

  “Any signs of gorillas?”

  “A few old tracks.”

  “Why didn’t you start back sooner?”

  “He wouldn’t have it. We had a devil of a time making him quit.”

  “He’s a great old guy.”

  “He’s got me worried, though.”

  “I wish I had half his stuff,” Jay said.

  The smaller Toto was opening up a linen bathtub. There were three big tins of water on fires. The water sizzled as the heat reached it through the thin metal.

  “How was Lew Cable?”

  “Pretty good,” Bill said. “I hate to admit it. A little theatrical, maybe, but he stood up.”

  Mrs. Salles came out of the tent. “He’s badly done in, poor soul,” she said.

  “We’ll keep him in camp tomorrow,” Bill said.

  “You must.”

  “A hot bath will help.”

  “And a hot drink. I’m to make him one.”

  She left them to find Herbert. Toto Minor came with the tub for the professor, followed by Toto Major with a pail of hot water. Now Jay could see the difference between them. Toto Major was darker, almost licorice black. It was funny, he thought, how Negroes and Indians and Japanese all looked alike. Especially Japanese. He supposed Europeans all looked alike to the Japanese, though.

  “What a swell doll,” Bill said.

  “Who? Oh. I suppose so.”

  “Oh, she is,” Bill said. “Those lavender eyes. And her skin.”

  “Tawny.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can hare her.”

  “Don’t you like her?”

  “I like her fine. But I’m giving her to you.”

  “Comrade,” Bill said, “I’ll take her.”

  There was only one tub, and Cable had it next, so Bill gave himself a sponge bath in Jay’s tent. Then he shaved with Jay’s razor, bending over to look in the mirror. His face was long, with a good jawline, and his blind eye, the eyebrow cocked from the scar left by the rock that had blinded him, gave him a rakish look.

  “Do you know something, Jay?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I wasn’t a bit spooked today.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I wanted to run into a gorilla.”

  Bill dipped a towel in water and washed off the lather behind his ears and around his nose. Jay thought no one would be able to tell he was blind. The eye looked all right.

  “I think I’m over being spooked,” Bill said.

  “Swell.”

  “I think I was spooked because lions were new to me.” Bill hung the towel over the mirror. “But it’s all over.”

  Jay said, “Don’t go the other way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’d better consider the possibility of being spooked. Then, if you are, it won’t be such a surprise.”

  “Old Jay, the philosopher.”

  “If you’ve considered it, and then aren’t scared, you’re ahead,” Jay said. “But if you haven’t, and then are, it’s likely to be damned upsetting.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It was that way with the lions I killed.”

  “You old bastard,” Bill said.

  Mrs. Salles ate dinner with them. They sat again under the fly of the dining tent, a stove going behind them and the open fire in front, but it was not too warm. They could hear water dripping in the bamboo. They drank the whisky Mr. Palmer brought to the table. He encouraged them to drink it. “Good for the chills,” he said. His face was a geranium color from the cold and the half bottle of whisky he had already consumed. The professor stayed in bed. Once Lew Cable limped to the professor’s tent, dragging one leg.

  “Old boy’s eating,” he said when he came back.

  “Good,” Bill said.

  “What did you do to your leg?” Mrs. Salles asked.

  “Wrenched it. Do it every so often. Old football injury.”

  “What a shame!”

  Herbert ate in Mrs. Salles’s tent, sitting so he could watch them. Jay could see his face in the light of the cook’s fire. He was like a dog. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her since they’d arrived. There was something queer about it.

  “Will you all go out tomorrow?” Mrs. Salles asked.

  “Not the professor,” Bill said.

  “And probably not me,” Lew Cable said gloomily.

  “Must have smaller parties, anyway,” said Mr. Palmer. “Big ones too noisy.”

  “And I was thinking I’d like to go!” Mrs. Sallcs said.

  “Use you as a lure,” Mr. Palmer said.
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  “Do you think I’d make a good one?”

  “Not very,” Bill said.

  “You don’t?”

  “Gorillas favor blondes,” Bill said.

  Jay said, “You’re thinking of Sam Goldwyn’s gorillas.”

  “Comrade,” Bill said, “Sam Goldwyn would never use anything but real gorillas.”

  “My hair is on the blond side,” said Mrs. Salles.

  “A movie gorilla would be a pushover for you,” Jay said.

  “But if I meet a noncinema one?”

  “Call for us,” Bill said.

  “What would you do?”

  “We’d call for Mr. Palmer.”

  Lew Cable said, “For God’s sake, let’s have dessert.”

  The boys brought in canned peaches and a tin of Huntley & Palmer cookies. Jay ate the peaches slowly, letting the sweet, thick, smooth, cold syrup run as slowly as possible down his throat. Mr. Palmer spoke to one of the Totos and he put wood on the fire.

  “That’s much better,” Mrs. Salles said.

  “No idea it was so cold here,” said Mr. Palmer.

  It reminded Jay of northern Michigan, when it has rained in October and then turned cold, the white steam rising from the lake, the air damp and full of electricity, the maples whispering with the dripping water, and everywhere the smell of damp earth. That was the feeling here in Africa and for a moment he was back in the lodge, at dinner with the family, his father red-faced from the weather, at the head of the table, drinking whisky and boasting of the marvelous double with the 16-gauge on the spoonbills they were eating, and his mother and Dick smiling at him and pretending not to believe, and Rob Roy, the blacky collie, under the table, listening too, his back against Jay’s feet, the dog smell of his wet fur strong.

  Lew Cable stood up, using the table to help him. “Unh,” he said. “That damned leg.”

  “I’ve some liniment,” Mrs. Salles said.

  “Thanks.” He smiled at her. “Of course, if I don’t improve, I can stay in camp with you tomorrow.”

  The hell, Jay thought. Maybe that was why he’d so suddenly become lame. Well, he had a clear field.

  Mr. Palmer said, “Must map out tomorrow’s campaign before the professor goes to sleep.”

  “Yes. Let’s ask him now,” Bill said. “Coming, Jay?”

  “You don’t need me.”

  Jay sat alone at the table. He wasn’t going anyway. Let them make their plans. He could hear the men’s voices in the professor’s tent; Cable’s much deeper than the others. The Totos came and cleared off the table. Jay could see black figures huddled around the porters’ fires near the wall of bamboo. The porters did not go far from their fires at night because of leopards. He noticed Herbert standing outside Mrs. Salles’s tent. He went over to him.