My trip to Zimbabwe was especially helpful. I’d never been to that particular country and was overwhelmed by the spectacular wildlife. The country had once been called the breadbasket of Africa, but by the time of my visit, much of the agricultural infrastructure had decayed and the economy had collapsed for largely political reasons. I walked among crumbling farmhouses and fallow fields, dependent on my imagination as to how verdant the land had been when the story first began. I also spent three weeks on various safaris, absorbing everything around me. I spoke to guides and scouts and spotters, discussing their training and their daily lives; I speculated on how challenging it must be for them to maintain families, since they spend most of their time in the bush. I confess, I found Africa utterly seductive. Since those trips, I’ve often felt the urge to return, and I know I will before long.
In spite of all the research, there’s much that remains unknown. Twenty-seven years is a long period of time, and to re-create verbatim an ancient conversation between two people is impossible. Nor is it possible to recall with accuracy each and every step a person takes, or the position of the clouds in the sky, or the rhythm of the waves as they roll up on the shore. What I can say is that what follows next is the best I can possibly do under such constraints. Since I made further alterations for the purposes of privacy, I’m comfortable describing this book as a novel and not a work of nonfiction.
The genesis, research, and creation of this book has been one of the more memorable experiences of my life. In some ways, it’s transformed the way I think about love. I suspect that most people harbor a lingering sense of What if I’d followed my heart?, and there’s no way to ever really know the answer. A life, after all, is simply a series of little lives, each of them lived one day at a time, and every single one of those days has choices and consequences. Piece by piece, those decisions help to form the people we become. I’ve captured some fragments to the best of my ability, but who is to say that the picture I’ve assembled is a true portrait of who the couple really was?
There will always be doubters when it comes to love. Falling in love is the easy part; making that love last amid life’s varied challenges is an elusive dream for many. But if you read this story with the same sense of wonder that I felt when writing it, then perhaps your faith in the uncanny force that love can exert on people’s lives will be renewed. You might even find your way to Kindred Spirit one day, with a story of your own to tell…one that has the power to change someone else’s life in ways you never imagined possible.
Nicholas Sparks
September 2, 2017
PART I
Tru
On the morning of September 9, 1990, Tru Walls stepped outside and surveyed a morning sky that was the color of fire near the horizon. The earth was cracked beneath his feet and the air was dry; it hadn’t rained in more than two months. Dust clung to his boots as he made his way to the pickup he’d owned for more than twenty years. Like his footwear, the truck was covered in dust, both inside and out. Beyond a fence topped with electric wire, an elephant pulled branches from a tree that had toppled earlier that morning. Tru paid it no attention. It was part of the landscape of his birth—his ancestors had emigrated from England more than a century earlier—and he was no more startled than a fisherman spotting a shark as the daily catch was pulled in. He was lean, with dark hair and squint lines at the corners of his eyes earned by a life spent in the sun; at forty-two, he sometimes wondered whether he’d chosen to live in the bush or the bush had chosen him.
The camp was quiet; the other guides—including Romy, his best friend—had left earlier that morning for the main lodge, where they would ferry guests from around the world into the bush. Tru had worked at the lodge in Hwange National Park for the past ten years; prior to that, his existence had been more nomadic, with changes in lodges every couple of years as he’d gained more experience. As a rule, he’d avoided only those lodges that allowed hunting, something his grandfather wouldn’t understand. His grandfather—who was referred to by everyone as the Colonel, though he never served in the military—claimed to have killed more than three hundred lions and cheetahs in his lifetime while protecting livestock on the massive family farm near Harare where Tru had been raised; his stepfather and half brothers were steadily making progress toward that same number. In addition to cattle, Tru’s family cultivated various crops, harvesting more tobacco and tomatoes than any other farm in the country. Coffee, too. His great-grandfather had worked with the legendary Cecil Rhodes—mining magnate, politician, and emblem of British imperialism—accumulating land, money, and power in the late nineteenth century, before Tru’s grandfather took over.
His grandfather, the Colonel, inherited a thriving enterprise from his father, but after World War II, the business expanded exponentially, making the Walls family one of the wealthiest in the country. The Colonel had never understood Tru’s desire to escape what was by then a bona fide business empire and life of considerable luxury. Before he’d died—Tru had been twenty-six at the time—he’d once visited a reserve where Tru had been working. Though he had slept at the main lodge rather than the guide camp, seeing Tru’s living quarters had been a shock to the old man. He’d surveyed a dwelling that he probably regarded as little better than a shack, without insulation or telephones. A kerosene lantern provided lighting, and a small communal generator powered a miniature refrigerator. It was a far cry from the home where Tru had been raised, but the austere surroundings were all Tru needed, especially as evening descended and an ocean of stars appeared overhead. In fact, they were a step up from a few of the previous camps where he’d worked; in two of those, he’d slept in a tent. Here, at least, there was running water and a shower, which he considered something of a luxury, even if they were in a communal bathroom.
On this morning, Tru carried his guitar in its battered case; a lunch box and thermos; a handful of drawings he’d made for his son, Andrew; and a knapsack containing a few days’ worth of clothing, toiletries, drawing pads, colored and charcoal pencils, and his passport. Though he’d be gone for about a week, he figured it was all he would need.
His truck was parked beneath a baobab tree. A few of his fellow guides were fond of the dry, pulpy fruit. They’d mix it into their porridge in the morning, but Tru had never developed a taste for it. Tossing his knapsack onto the front seat, he checked the bed of the truck, making sure there was nothing in the back that could be stolen. Though he’d leave the truck at the family farm, there were more than three hundred field workers there, all of whom made very little money. Good tools were prone to vanishing into the ether, even under the watchful eyes of his family.
He slid behind the wheel and slipped on his sunglasses. Before turning the key, he made sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. There wasn’t much; in addition to the knapsack and guitar, he carried with him the letter and photograph he’d received from America, along with his plane tickets and his wallet. In the rack behind him was a loaded rifle in case his truck broke down and he found himself wandering in the bush, which remained one of the most dangerous places in the world, especially at night, even for someone as experienced as he. In the glove compartment were a compass and a flashlight. He made sure his tent was beneath the seat, again in case of emergency. It was compact enough to fit in the bed of his truck, and though it wouldn’t do much to keep predators at bay, it was better than sleeping on the ground. All right, then, he thought. He was as ready as he’d ever be.
The day was already growing warm and the interior of the truck was even hotter. He’d avail himself of the “two-twenty” air-conditioning: two windows down at a speed of twenty miles an hour. It wouldn’t help much, but he’d long since grown used to the heat. He rolled up the sleeves of his tan button-up shirt. He wore his usual trekking pants, which had grown soft and comfortable over the years. The guests hanging around the swimming pool back at the main lodge would likely be in bathing suits and flip-flops, but he’d never been comfortable in that attire. The boots and c
anvas pants had once saved his life when he’d crossed paths with an angry black mamba; if he hadn’t had the proper clothing, the venom would have killed him in less than thirty minutes.
He glanced at his watch. It was a little after seven, and he had a long couple of days ahead. Cranking the engine, he backed out before heading toward the gate. He hopped out, pulled the gate open, rolled the truck through, and then closed the gate again. The last thing the other guides needed was to return to camp and find that a pride of lions had settled in. It had happened before—not at this particular camp but at another where he’d worked, in the southeastern part of the country. That had been a chaotic day. No one had been quite sure what to do other than bide their time until the lions figured out how long they intended to stay. Fortunately, the lions had vacated the camp to go on the hunt later in the afternoon, but ever since then, Tru made a point to check the gates, even when he wasn’t driving. Some of the guides were new, and he didn’t want to take any chances.
Shifting the truck into gear, he settled in, trying to make the ride as smooth as possible. The first hundred miles were on rutted gravel roads pocked with potholes, first on the reserve, then winding past a number of small villages. That part would take until the early afternoon, but he was used to the drive, and he allowed his mind to wander as he took in the world he called home.
The sun glinted through wispy clouds that trailed over the tree line, illuminating a lilac-breasted roller as it broke free from the tree branches on his left. Two warthogs crossed the road ahead of him, trotting past a family of baboons. He’d seen those animals thousands of times, but he still marveled at how they could survive when surrounded by so many predators. Nature had its own insurance policy, he knew. Animals that were low on the food chain had more young; female zebras, for instance, were pregnant for all but nine or ten days a year. It was estimated that female lions, on the other hand, had to mate more than a thousand times for every cub that reached its first birthday. It was evolutionary balance at its finest, and though he witnessed it daily, it still struck him as extraordinary.
Often, guests would ask him about the most exciting things he’d seen while guiding. He’d recount what it was like to be charged by a black rhino, or how he’d once witnessed a giraffe bucking wildly until finally giving birth in an explosive discharge that had surprised him in its violence. He’d seen a jaguar cub dragging a warthog nearly twice its size high into a tree, only inches ahead of a pack of snarling hyenas who’d caught the scent of the kill. One time, he’d followed a wild dog that, abandoned by its own kind, had bonded with a pack of jackals—the same pack it used to hunt. The stories were endless.
Was it possible, he wondered, to experience the same game drive twice? The answer was both yes and no. A person could go to the same lodge, work with the same guide, leave at the same time, and drive the same roads in exactly the same weather in the same season, but always, the animals were in different places, doing different things. They moved to and from watering holes, watching and listening, eating and sleeping and mating, all of them simply trying to survive another day.
Off to the side, he saw a herd of impalas. Guides would joke that those antelopes were the McDonald’s of the bush, fast food in abundance. They were part of every predator’s diet, and guests usually grew tired of photographing them after a single game drive. Tru, however, slowed the truck, watching as one after another made an impossibly high and graceful leap over a fallen tree, as if choreographed. In their own way, he thought, they were as special as the big five—lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and water buffalo—or even the big seven, which included cheetahs and hyenas. Those were the animals that guests most wanted to see, the game that inspired the most excitement. The thing was, spotting lions wasn’t particularly difficult, at least when the sun was shining. Lions slept eighteen to twenty hours a day, and they could usually be found resting in the shade. Spotting a moving lion, on the other hand, was rare, except at night. In the past, he’d worked at lodges that offered evening game drives. A few had been hair-raising, and many had been blinding, the dust from a hundred buffalo or wildebeest or zebra swirling as they’d stampeded from lions. It had been impossible to see more than inches in any direction, forcing Tru to stop the jeep. Twice, he’d realized that his vehicle was suddenly sandwiched between the pride of lions and whatever they’d been hunting, sending his adrenaline skyrocketing.
The road grew steadily rougher, and Tru slowed even more, weaving from one side to the other. He was headed for Bulawayo, the second-largest city in the country and home to his ex-wife, Kim, and their son, Andrew. He had a house there as well, which he’d bought after his divorce. In retrospect, it was obvious that he and Kim hadn’t been well suited for each other. They’d met ten years ago at a bar in Harare, when Tru had been between jobs. Later Kim would tell him that he’d struck her as exotic, which along with his last name was enough to pique her interest. As for her, she was eight years younger and beautiful, with an easygoing yet confident charm. One thing led to the next, and they’d ended up spending much of the next six weeks together. By then, the bush was calling to Tru again and he’d wanted to end the relationship; instead, she’d told him she was pregnant. They got married, Tru took a job at Hwange because of its relative proximity to Bulawayo, and Andrew came along not long after that.
Though she’d known what Tru did for a living, Kim had assumed that when they had a child, Tru would find a job that didn’t keep him away for weeks on end. Instead, he continued to guide, Kim eventually met someone else, and their marriage came to an end less than five years after it had started. There were no hard feelings on either side; if anything, their relationship had improved since their divorce. Whenever he picked up Andrew, he and Kim would visit for a while, catching up like the old friends they were. She’d remarried and had a daughter with her second husband, Ken; on their last visit, she’d told Tru she was pregnant again. Ken worked in the finance office of Air Zimbabwe. He wore a suit to work and was home every night for dinner. That’s what Kim wanted, and Tru was happy for her.
As for Andrew…
His son was ten now, and the one great thing to come out of the marriage. As fate would have it, Tru contracted the measles when Andrew was a few months old, leaving him sterile, but he had never felt the need for another child. For him, Andrew had always been more than enough, and he was the reason Tru was detouring to Bulawayo instead of heading straight to the farm. With blond hair and brown eyes, Andrew resembled his mother, and Tru had dozens of drawings of him tacked to the walls of his shack. Over the years, he’d added photographs—on almost every visit, Kim would hand Tru an envelope filled with them—different versions of his son blending together, evolving into someone entirely new. At least once a week, Tru would sketch something he’d seen in the bush—usually an animal—but other times, he would draw the two of them, trying to capture a memory from their previous visit.
Balancing family and work had been a challenge, especially after the divorce. For six weeks, while he worked at the camp, Kim had custody and Tru would be entirely absent from his son’s life: no calls, no visits, no impromptu soccer matches or ice cream runs. Then, for two weeks, Tru would assume custody and play the role of full-time father. Andrew would stay with him in his house in Bulawayo, Tru ferrying him to and from school, packing lunches and making dinner, and helping with homework. On the weekends, they did whatever Andrew chose, and in each and every one of those moments, Tru would wonder how it was possible to love his son as deeply as he did, even if he wasn’t always around to show it.
Off to the right, he spotted a pair of circling buzzards. Searching for something left over from the hyenas last night, perhaps, or maybe looking for an animal that had died earlier in the morning. Lately, many of the animals had been struggling. The country was in the midst of yet another drought, and the watering holes in this area of the reserve had gone dry. It wasn’t surprising; not far to the west, in Botswana, lay the vast Kalahari Desert, home of the legendar
y San people. Their language was thought to be one of the oldest in existence, heavy on knocks and clicks, and sounded almost alien to outsiders. Despite having virtually nothing in the way of material things, they joked and laughed more than any other group of people he’d ever met, but he wondered how long they would be able to maintain their way of life. Modernity was encroaching and there were rumors that the government of Botswana was going to require that all children in the country be educated in schools, including the San. He guessed that would eventually spell the end of a culture that had existed for thousands of years.
But Africa was always changing. He’d been born in Rhodesia, a colony of the British Empire; he’d watched the country descend into civil unrest, and he had still been a teenager when the country finally split, eventually becoming the nations of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Like in South Africa—which was regarded as a pariah because of apartheid in much of the civilized world—in Zimbabwe, much of the wealth was concentrated among a tiny percentage of the population, almost all of them white. Tru doubted that would last forever, but politics and social inequality were subjects he no longer discussed with his family. They were, after all, part of that privileged group, and like all privileged groups, they believed they deserved their riches and advantages, no matter how brutally the original wealth and power might have been accrued.
Every Breath Page 2