Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Where are you going to sleep?” he asked.

  “Right here,” Herbert said sullenly.

  “Outside the tent?”

  “Of course. I’ve a sleeping bag.”

  “There’s plenty of room in our tents.”

  “I stay here,” Herbert said.

  His voice was harsh. He had almost a cockney accent, slurring his words, but not dropping any h’s. He didn’t like talking to any one.

  Jay said, “There’s likely to be a leopard nosing around.”

  “Don’t scare me, mister.”

  “I’m not trying to scare you.”

  “I keep watch anyway.”

  “Keep watch for what?”

  “Gorillas,” Herbert said. “Of one kind or another.”

  “You’re crazy,” Jay said. “Nobody’s going to touch her.”

  “You’re bloody sure of that, ain’t you, mister?”

  “O.K., pal,” Jay said.

  He went back to the dining tent. It was steadily getting colder. He sat at the table, thinking suddenly how fantastic it was that they should meet in one of the least-traveled portions of the Belgian Congo the harsh-voiced ghost of a London pimp or racetrack tout or pickpocket or dope peddler, wearing the blue suit and tan shoes and panama hat that had been fashionable in Cairo or Capetown or wherever it was Salles had picked him up to watch his wife. Even the woman was a little fantastic. He wondered what sort of a man her husband was. What kind of a man would put a watch on his wife? An old man, or a man violently in love. Of course, Jay thought, the French might be different. And then, when Salles had hired Herbert, he had no idea his wife would leave Cairo or Capetown or wherever it was. Herbert, by a stretch of the imagination, might be the kind of an Englishman someone who was not English might hire to drive his English or Canadian-English wife around a city like Cairo and, at the same time, keep an eye on her.

  “What are you thinking about?” Mrs. Salles asked.

  Jay had not heard her come up. “Nothing,” he said.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Of course.”

  She sat down near him, facing the fire. The cook and the Totos were cleaning up, talking as they worked. At the edge of the bamboo were the porters’ fires, piled high with green logs so they would burn all night. The flames flickered among the piled logs. A fog had settled over camp, heavy and gray, almost the color of wood smoke. The porters had gone into their huts.

  “Isn’t this strange?” she said.

  “What?”

  “This mist. It’s like a fog at sea. Everything seems different and mysterious.”

  Her voice was low and throaty. It reminded him again of Linda’s. That was because both their voices were so husky. It was going to be hard on him, having her around.

  After a time she asked, “Do you hear something down below?”

  “No. What?”

  “Listen.”

  He listened, hearing water in the bamboo and moving leaves and voices in the professor’s tent and the snapping of burning wood. A porter called something to a porter in another hut. Drops of water fell from the canvas roof of the dining tent to the earth with the plop of a soft handclap. Then, far below, faint through the mist, he heard a noise like a creaky gate.

  “A leopard,” Jay said.

  The sound came again. It sounded something like a donkey braying. It was a strange sound to hear at night.

  “Could we please have a little more fire?” she asked.

  Jay put some small wood on the fire. The wood was damp and it hissed when the coals made it hot. An almost-white smoke came from the wet wood. Lew Cable and Mr. Palmer came from the professor’s tent. Cable was dragging one foot. He looked at Jay.

  “Well, Boy Scout,” he said, “you’re elected.”

  “To what?”

  “What kind of a shot are you?” Mr. Palmer asked.

  “I used to be a hell of a man with a twenty-two,” Jay said.

  “Not on those sheep?”

  “No. I used a Springfield.”

  Cable said, “You’re to go with Mr. Palmer tomorrow.”

  “Oh, what fun!” Eve Salles exclaimed.

  “I may go, too,” Cable said. “Depends on my leg.”

  “Be four or five of us,” Mr. Palmer said. “Mulu and just one pygmy.”

  “But what about Bill?” Jay asked.

  “He’s to stay with the professor.”

  “Don’t you want to go, Boy Scout?”

  “I’m crazy to.”

  Lew Cable grunted. “Wait until you get in that mud. Then you won’t be so crazy.”

  “Pull you out in the morning,” Mr. Palmer told Jay. He smiled at Mrs. Salles. “Good night.”

  Lew Cable said good night, too.

  “I suppose we should turn in,” Mrs. Salles said.

  “Yes.” Jay felt a hollow, stomach-tingling surge of excitement. What luck! he thought. He never imagined he’d get out of camp. He felt Mrs. Salles looking at him. He said, “I think Herbert is going to sleep outside your tent.”

  “I know. He’s such an idiot.”

  “He’s afraid a gorilla will carry you off.”

  “I wish one would,” she said.

  “Do you really?”

  “No. Not really.” Her voice was low. “That just slipped out.”

  He didn’t know what she meant, but he suddenly felt sorry for her. She probably had a great many troubles. He was sure it was not only her husband; especially if he was the kind of man who hired someone to watch over her. There were probably other complications. Everyone had troubles, if you only knew. This was a hell of an unoriginal thought, he thought, but it was a thing people often forgot.

  “May I ask you something?” she said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why did you stare at me so this morning?”

  He hesitated. “Did I stare?”

  “You know you did.”

  “I’d been asleep. I was surprised to see a woman.”

  “That isn’t it,” she said.

  “No, I guess not. It was your voice. It reminded me of someone’s.”

  “A relative?”

  “In a way.”

  The small wood he had put on the fire was nearly gone. Insects sung around them. The heavy smoke over camp was pink in places from the fires. It was very cold. She stood up.

  “I hope you have luck tomorrow,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  He walked with her to her tent. He could feel the fog on his neck. Herbert’s sleeping bag was by the entrance, but he was not there. He was probably spying on them from somewhere.

  “Good night,” Jay said.

  “Was it someone you liked very much?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The girl whose voice was like mine?”

  “Yes.”

  In his tent he put on pajamas and a sweater. He got in bed. Even in Africa, he thought, you couldn’t get away. There was no place where something couldn’t come up to remind you of what had happened. What lousy luck her voice should be so much like Linda’s. Well, he would try not to think about Linda. Not that he had had much luck not thinking about her so far. It was too bad they could not remove your memory by some operation. Like your tonsils, for instance.

  CHAPTER 7

  THEY LEFT CAMP soon after dawn, taking the elephant path back through the bamboo. They walked in a white mist that had come down from the mountains in the night. The mist was cold in the early morning. There were four in the hunting party: Mr. Palmer, Mulu, the Somali gunbearer; Nygano, the pygmy, and Jay. Lew Cable had been too lame to come. Their leader was the pygmy. He walked ahead of the others on the soft path, his spear swinging with his arm.

  “He says it’s three miles,” Mr. Palmer told Jay.

  The elephant path made a tunnel through the tall green bamboo. It was dark there, but Nygano walked rapidly. There was no wind and they could hear the water in the bamboo. When they brushed against the stalks the water fell on them. In a
low place they saw the spoor of an elephant. Inch-deep water stood in the round hole left by his foot. He had gone by the camp in the night.

  In a few minutes they reached the escarpment where they had seen the knuckle mark of the big gorilla. Here Nygano left the bamboo and led them up into the forest on a trail that had not been used recently. Grass overgrew it, and there were logs and rocks and bare roots. The trail wound through the trees. They had to crawl in places and their hands became frosted with mud. The mist hung here, too. They could not see the plateau of bamboo below them.

  In one place Nygano stopped to show them where a leopard had made a kill. In the mud were the prints of the springing leopard and by the path was grass matted from the death struggle. Nygano showed them dried blood on a leaf. A small animal had been killed. Then they climbed again, the vegetation throwing water on them. The green undergrowth was head high and from the trees hung Spanish moss and ferns and vines. The forest smelled of crushed catnip. On the trunks of the trees were big creepers and beneath the trees were silver-green bushes with pink flowers that had no odor. Jay began to pant, his breath floating like cigarette smoke in front of his mouth. His lungs hurt; the thin mountain air did not fill them. He climbed, breathing hard, his eyes on Nygano’s wet, glistening back.

  They came to a small clear stream. The water was light where the stream moved along with a rustling noise, but in the pools it was a silvered black. Jay wondered if there were trout in the stream. They crossed at a wide place, the water pushing cold and heavy against their legs. The water soaked their trousers. They went across the stream and climbed the mossy bank. The path was better on this side; the ground level. Nygano pointed out wild blackberries, large and green. He and Mulu ate a few.

  Now they went very slowly. There were clumps of plantain and bamboo and Jay knew they were close to the deserted village. The pygmy walked quietly, looking at the clumps of bamboo. Suddenly he stepped off the path and waited for them to come up to him. He was in the bamboo, bending over stalks on the ground. Animals had broken off the stalks and stripped them clean, leaving only shreds of pinkish-gray fiber. The ground was littered with the chewed and broken bamboo shoots.

  Mr. Palmer whispered, “By God!”

  “Gorillas?” Jay asked.

  “Yes.”

  They went back to the trail. The mist was white and thick and wet. Jay felt the cold through his clothes. His stomach felt cold and numb. He was excited. The shoots had been eaten recently. Nygano walked ahead and then halted again and Jay could see a hut. It looked like a very big beehive that vines had grown over. He could make out the black outlines of two more huts in the fog. The mud drying on his hands made the skin itch.

  Nygano waited, listening. Jay tried to hold his breath. He could hear the forest silence behind the dripping of water in the trees. At last there was a noise in the jungle beyond the village. Wet leaves were moved and then there was a ripping noise, as though a head of cabbage was being torn apart. Gorillas! Jay thought. They were feeding in the plantain. He could not tell how far away they were. Nygano led them to the grove of plantain.

  “I’ll take the first shot,” Mr. Palmer whispered.

  Jay nodded. He was shaking with excitement.

  With the plantain grew bamboo and it was not easy to go quietly. Jay could see only a few feet into the tangle of vegetation. The fog was everywhere, like white steam. The plantain leaves were a dark green, much heavier than the slender bamboo leaves. They had to walk bent over to avoid high creepers. The mud sucked at their feet, making it hard to walk. They could hear the gorillas clearly. They were feeding on plantain and bamboo. They followed the noise, the gorillas moving ahead of them. Mulu touched Jay’s shoulder. Jay turned. Mulu handed him the Springfield. He looked and saw the rifle had been loaded.

  Nygano found a plantain that had been torn, the heavy leaves shredded. He showed them a bolus of greenish fecal matter in the mud. Near this were knuckle marks and the print of a foot. The print was twice as large as man’s, but it had the heel and toes of a human foot. It was very broad. They followed this gorilla’s spoor, moving slowly and quietly, but they could not catch him. The gorillas were feeding away from the village towards the forest. Once they heard the clop of hands on a bare chest. They halted and listened. A gorilla grunted just ahead of them. Nygano went on alone. They waited while he peered through an opening in the bamboo. He turned to Mr. Palmer, his small face excited, and held up five fingers. Then he held up a little finger. Jay interpreted this to mean five adults and one baby.

  Near the edge of the level land, where the thick forest went up into the fog, they got very close to the gorillas. They could see the feathery tops of the bamboo shake. The gorillas moved about heavily, their stomachs rumbling. They grunted like old men. They were to the right, but Nygano led the hunters ahead to intercept them, at last bearing a little to the right. They went softly, crawling part of the time. Nygano signaled for them to halt. The gorillas were coming up to them. Jay could smell them. He took off the Springfield’s safety.

  Suddenly one of the gorillas barked. The sound was like the short bark of a dog. Then there was no more noise. Something had alarmed them. Nygano found where they had stopped feeding and had fled silently into the forest. He followed their trail.

  It was twilight in the forest. The mist was lighter, but the foliage roofed out the sky. There was an odor of mold. The gorillas left a trail of feces. They were far ahead, going up the mountain. Nygano hurried after them. For a long way the spoor led the hunters over mud as slippery slick as wet soap. Where it was steep they pulled themselves up by grasping bushes and tree trunks. Nettles burned their hands and faces. In one place, on more level ground, they waded shoulder deep in the silvery stalks of a celery bed. The celery grew thick under the trees. From there they went into a jungle of fresh undergrowth, pushing through grass and weeds and ferns in a shower of water. The ferns were like fine hand-sewn lace. In the trees the Spanish moss formed platforms, and on these bloomed red and pink orchids. The moss made pillows of gray and yellow silk on the ground. Many of the trees in the forest were dead. The parasite moss had killed them.

  Jay wondered how far he could climb. He could hear his heart pound. He was not used to such thin air.

  Nygano turned away from the trail of feces on another circle. He went directly up the mountain, the three others crawling after him. Here the wind had blown away the fog. The pygmy climbed fast. Jay was nearly exhausted. He wanted to flop face down in the mud, to gasp air and to rest, but he forced himself along on his hands and knees. He wondered how Mr. Palmer could stand it.

  At last they reached nearly level ground, coming to a wooded shoulder that overlooked a bowl-shaped valley filled with bamboo. Nygano halted to watch the bamboo. He stood very still, not taking his eyes off the valley. They watched with him for a long time, staring down at the lime-colored narrow leaves that waved in the wind. Around them sunshine filtered through the trees. Jay was wet with sweat, but now, in the shade, he was cold. He shivered with cold and excitement. He could hear his breath whistle in his throat.

  Nygano pointed his spear at a corner of the basin. Jay looked in that direction. He couldn’t see anything. Then he saw a bush move on the edge of the bamboo. Several bushes were moving there. He saw a black hairy arm bend a sapling, saw creepers jerk loose from the branches, and then three gorillas came into the bamboo. They looked like circus bears. They walked on their feet and knuckles, round-shouldered, not having to bend to touch the ground because of their great length of arm. Their fur was glossy and black. They fed on the bamboo, twisting off the young shoots, then pulling them through their teeth and tossing away the peeled remains. Mr. Palmer raised his rifle, but Nygano shook his head. One gorilla had not yet appeared. The others came slowly across the bamboo valley. They moved like persons with club feet, shuffling and swinging their hips. Their feet went outside their knuckles.

  Behind the hunters a gorilla barked. The sound was not far up the wooded shoulder, but the
y could not see him in the trees. They heard the clop clop of his fists on his chest. Nygano started up the shoulder towards him and he roared. His voice was deep.

  “Watch out!” Mr. Palmer called to Nygano.

  Nygano took another step and the gorilla charged with a roar. They could see the underbrush shake. He came for them, shrieking and roaring. Nygano jumped back. The gorilla made a terrific noise. About twenty feet away he gave up the charge and was silent. They had not seen him at all.

  The other gorillas fled back across the basin, breaking through the bamboo. They were very human in their fright. They kept turning their black faces, looking over their shoulders as they ran. They were trying to see what was pursuing them. They disappeared into the forest.

  The big gorilla was sneaking away. They started after him up the shoulder and at once he charged. He was angry. He roared and beat his chest and broke the underbrush. He sounded enormous. They halted and he abandoned the charge. The underbrush was so dense they could not see him. They went forward again, moving cautiously, rifles ready. They had come to a large fallen tree and were standing on the bare, half-rotten trunk when he charged again. Jay could see him now in a narrow valley through the underbrush, a shaggy black animal, all belly and arms and shoulders. His face was like a mask of oiled black leather. Jay watched him come, on all fours, screaming as he ran, his face hideous with rage, showing yellow fangs and blood-red gums, plunging through vines and bushes, bulking bigger and bigger, great-shouldered, flat-nosed, wide-nostriled, with bloodshot eyes and yellow fangs, like a crazy buck nigger, only twice as big as any nigger in the world, a nightmare of a nigger; and then Mr. Palmer raised his rifle; there was a deep bararoong, and the gorilla plunged face down into the underbrush.

  “You got him!” Jay yelled.

  Mulu and the pygmy were shouting, too. Mr. Palmer ejected the cartridge from his rifle. Jay pounded his shoulder. Mulu danced on the log. Suddenly Nygano cried out, pointing his spear. The gorilla was running down the side of the shoulder, hairy and round-shouldered. His back was covered with silver hair. Mr. Palmer raised his rifle, but he didn’t shoot. There were too many trees. The gorilla went into the forest.