When the Lion Feeds

by Wilbur Smith

  Look! Look at all my sweets, gloated Dirk. Do you want one, Pa? Thank you, Dirk, Sean put one of the huge striped humbugs in his mouth, moved it to one side and spoke around it.

  where’s your Mummy? There. Dirk pointed at the bedroom. He closed the sweet packet carefully. I’ll keep some for Bejaan, he announced. He’ll like that, Sean said and went across to the bedroom. Katrina lay on the bed, as soon as he saw her he knew something was desperately wrong. She lay staring up at the ceiling, her eyes unseeing, her face as yellow and set as that of a corpse. Two quick strides carried him to her. He touched her cheek with his fingers and the sense of dread settled on him again, heavily, darkly. Katrina? There was no response. She lay still without a flicker of life in her eyes. Sean swung round and ran out of the suite, down the corridor to the head of the stairs.

  There were people in the lobby below him and he yelled over their heads to the clerk behind the desk. Get a doctor! run! an as fast as you can... my wife, is dying The man stared UP at him blankly. He had a neck too thin for his high stiff collar and his black hair was parted down the centre and polished with grease.

  Hurry, you stupid bastard, get moving, roared Sean.

  Everybody in the lobby was looking at him. He still wore only a small towel around his waist and, heavy with water, his hair hung down over his forehead.

  Move, man! Move! Sean was dancing with impatience.

  There was a heavy stone vase on the banister at Sean’s side, he picked it up threateningly and the clerk jerked out of his trance and scuttled for the front door. Sean ran back to the suite.

  Dirk was standing by Katrina’s bed, his face distorted by the humbug it contained and his eyes large with curiosity.

  Sean snatched him up, carried him through to the other bedroom and locked the door on his outraged howls. Dirk was unused to being handled in that manner. Sean went back to Katrina and knelt beside her bed. He was still kneeling there when the doctor arrived. Tersely Sean explained about the blackwater, and the doctor listened then sent him to wait in the sitting-room. It was a long wait before the doctor came through to him and Sean sensed that behind his professional poker face the man was puzzled.

  Is it a relapse? Sean demanded. No, I don’t think so. I’ve given her a sedativeWhat’s wrong with her? What is it? - Sean pursued him and the doctor hedged. Has your wife had some sort of shock... some bad news, something that could have alarmed her? Has she been under nervous strain? No... she’s just come back from church. Why? What’s wrong? Sean caught the doctor’s lapels and shook him in his agitation. It appears to be some sort of paralytic hysteria. I’ve given her laudanum. She’ll sleep now and I’ll come back to see her this evening. The doctor was trying to loosen Sean’s hands from his jacket. Sean let him go and pushed past him to the bedroom.

  The doctor called again just before dark, Sean had undressed Katrina and put her into the bed, but apart from that she had not moved. Her breathing was shallow and fast despite the drug she had been given. The doctor was baffled.

  I can’t understand it, Mr Courtney. There is nothing I can find wrong with her apart from her general run-down condition. I think we’ll just have to wait and see, I don’t want to give her any more drugs. Sean knew the man could be of no more help to him and he hardly noticed when he left with a promise to come again in the morning. Mbejane gave Dirk his bath, fed him and put him to bed and then he slipped quietly out of the suite and left Sean alone with Katrina. The afternoon of worry had tired Sean. He left the gas burning in the sitting-room and stretched out on his own bed.

  After a while he slept.

  When the rhythm of Ins breathing changed Katrina looked across at him.

  Sean lay fully clothed on top of his blankets, one thickly muscled arm thrown above his head and his tension betrayed by the twitching of his lips and the frown that puckered his face. Katrina stood up and moved across to stand over him, lonely as she had never been in the solitude of the bush, hurt beyond the limits of physical pain and with everything that she believed in destroyed in those few minutes that it had taken for her to discover the truth.

  She looked down at Sean and with surprise realized that she still loved him, but now the security that she had found with him was gone. The walls of her castle had proved paper. She had felt the first cold draughts blowing in through them as she watched him reliving his past and regretting it. She had felt the walls tremble and the wind howl stronger outside when he danced with that woman - then, they had collapsed into rain around her. Standing in the half-darkened room, watching the man she trusted so completely and who just as completely had betrayed her, she went carefully over the ground again to make sure there was no mistake.

  That morning, she and Dirk had stopped at the sweet shop on the way back from church. It was almost opposite the hotel. it had taken Dirk a long time to select his tuppenny worth.

  The profusion of wares on display unmanned him and reduced him to a state of dithering indecision. Finally, with the assistance of the proprietor and a little prompting from Katrina his purchases were made and packed into a brown paper bag. They were just about to go when Katrina looked out through the large front window of the shop and saw Candy Rautenbach leaving the hotel. She came quickly down the front steps, glanced about her, crossed the street to a waiting carriage and her coachman whisked her away. Katrina had stopped the instant she caught sight of her. A pang of last night’s jealousy returned, for Candy looked very lovely even in the morning sunlight. It was not until Candy’s carriage disappeared that Katrina began to question her presence at their hotel at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning. Her jealousy was a bayonet thrust up under her ribs: it made her catch her breath.

  Vividly she remembered Candy’s whispered question as they left the Golden Guinea the previous night. She remembered the way Sean had answered and the way he had lied about it afterwards.

  Sean knew that Katrina would go to church that morning.

  How simple it all was! Sean had arranged to meet her, he had refused to accompany Katrina and while Katrina was out of the way that harlot had gone to him.Mummy, you’re hurting me. Unconsciously she had tightened her grip on Dirk’s hand. She hurried out of the shop, dragging Dirk with her. She almost ran across the hotel lobby, up the stairs and along the passage. The door was closed. She opened it and the smell of Candy’s perfume met her.

  Her nostrils flared at it. There was no mistaking it, she remembered it from the previous evening the smell of fresh violets. She heard Sean call from the bathroom, Dirk ran across the room and hammered on the door. Daddy! Daddy! Mummy got sweets for me. She put her Bible down on top of the writing desk and moved across the thick carpet with the smell of violets all around her. She stood in the doorway of the bedroom.

  Sean’s nightshirt lay on the floor, there were still damp stains on it.

  She felt her legs begin to tremble. She looked up and saw the stains on the bed, grey on the white sheets.

  She felt giddy, her cheeks burned; she only just managed to reach her own bed.

  She knew there was no mistake. Sean had taken that woman in such a casually blatant manner, in their own bedroom, almost before her eyes, that his rejection of her could hardly have been more final if he had slapped her face and thrown her into the street. Weakened by fever, depressed by the loss of her child and the phase of her cycle, she had not the resilience to fight against it. She had loved him but she had proved insufficient for him.

  She could not stay with him: the stubborn pride of her race would not allow it. There was only one alternative.

  Timidly she bent over him and as she kissed him she smelt the warm man-smell of his body and felt his beard brush her cheek. Her determination wavered; she wanted to throw herself across his chest, lock her arms around his neck and plead with him. She wanted to ask for another chance. If he could tell her how she had failed him she could try to change, if only he could show her what she had done wrong.

  Perhaps if they went back into the bush again, She dragged
herself away from his bed. She pressed her knuckles hard against her lips. It was no use. He had decided and even if she begged him to take her back there would always be this thing between them. She had lived in a castle and she would not change it now for a mud hut. Driven by the trek whip of her pride she moved quickly across to the wardrobe. She put on a coat and buttoned it, it reached to her ankles and covered her nightdress; she spread the green shawl over her head, winding the loose end around her throat. once more she looked across at Sean. He slept with his big body sprawled and the frown still on his face.

  In the sitting-room. she stopped beside the writing desk. -Her Bible lay where she had left it. She opened the front cover, dipped the pen and wrote. She closed the book and went to the door. There she hesitated once more and looked back at Dirk’s bedroom. She could not trust herself to see him again. She lifted an end of the shawl to cover her mouth, then she went out into the passage and closed the door softly behind her.

  Sean was surprised to find himself fully dressed and lying on top of his bed when he woke next morning. It was still half dark outside the hotel windows and the room was cold. He propped himself up on one elbow and rubbed at his eyes with the back of a clenched fist. Then he remembered and he swung his legs off the bed and looked at Katrina’s bed. The blankets were thrown back and it was empty. Sean’s first feeling was relief, she had recovered enough to get up on her own. He went through to the bathroom, stumbling a little from the stiffness of uneasy sleep.

  He tapped on the closed door.

  Katrina? he questioned and then again louder. Katrina, are you in there? The handle turned when he tried it and the door swung open without resistance. He blinked at the empty room, white tiles reflecting the uncertain light, a towel thrown across a chair where he had left it. He felt the first twinge of alarm. Dirk’s room, the door was still locked, the key on the outside. He flung it open. Dirk sat up in bed, his face flushed, his curls standing up like the leaves of a sisal bush. Sean ran out into the passage, along it and looked down into the lobby. There was a light burning behind the reception desk.

  The clerk slept with his head on his arms, sitting forward on his chair snoring Sean went down the stairs three at a time. He shook the clerk.

  Has anybody been out through here during the night? Sean demanded. I... I don’t know. Is that door locked? Sean pointed at the front door. No, sir, there’s a night latch on it. You can get out but not in. Sean ran out onto the pavement. Which way, which way to search for her? Which way had she gone? Back to Pretoria to the wagons? Sean thought not. She would need transport and she had no money to hire it. Why should she leave without waking him, leave Dirk, leave her clothing and disappear into the night. She must have been unbalanced by the drugs the doctor had given her. Perhaps there was something in his theory that she had suffered a shock, perhaps she was wandering in her nightdress through the streets with no memory, perhaps, Sean stood in the cold grey Transvaal morning, the city starting to murmur into wakefulness around him, the questions crowding into his head and finding there no answers with which to mate.

  He turned and ran back through the hotel, out of the rear door into the stable yard. Mbejane, he shouted, Mbejane, where the hell are you? Mbejane appeared quickly from the stall where he was currying one of the hired horses. Nkosi? Have you seen the Nkosikazi? Mbejane’s face creased into a puzzled frown. Yesterday, - No, man, shouted Sean. Today, last night... have you seen her? Mbejane’s expression was sufficient reply.

  Sean brushed impatiently past him and ran into the stable. He snatched a saddle off the rack and threw it onto the back of the nearest horse.

  While he clinched the girth and forced a bit between its teeth he spoke to Mbejane. The Nkosikazi is sick. She has left during the night. It is possible that she walks as one who still sleeps. Go quickly among your friends and tell them to search for her, tell them that there’s ten pounds in gold for the one who finds her. Then come back here and care for Dirk until I return. Sean led the horse from the stable and Mbejane hurried off to spread the word. Sean knew that within minutes half the Zulus in Johannesburg would be looking for Katrina, tribal loyalty and ten pounds in gold were strong incentives. He swung up onto the horse and galloped out of the yard. He tried the Pretoria road first. Three miles out of town a native herd boy grazing sheep beside the road convinced him that Katrina did not passed that way.

  He turned back. He paid a visit to the police station at Marshal Square. The Kommandant remembered him from the old days; Sean could rely on his cooperation.

  Sean left him and rode fast through the streets that were starting to fill with the bustle of a working day. He hitched his horse outside the hotel and took the front steps three at a time. The clerk had no news for him. He ran up the stairs and along the passage to his suite.

  Mbejane was feeding Dirk his breakfast. Dirk beamed at Sean through a faceful of egg and spread his arms to be picked up but Sean had no time for him. Has she come back? Mbejane shook his head. They will find her, Nkosi.

  Fifty men are searching for her now. Stay with the child, said Sean and went down to his horse. He stood beside it ready to mount but not knowing which way to go. Where the hell has she got to? he demanded aloud. In her night clothes with no money, where the hell had she gone? He mounted and rode with aimless urgency through the streets, searching the faces of the people along the sidewalks, turning down the sanitary lanes and peering into backyards and vacant plots. By midday he had tired his horse and worked himself into a ferment of worry and bad temper. He had searched every street in Johannesburg, made a nuisance of himself at the police station and sworn at the hotel clerk, but there was still no sign of Katrina. He was riding down Jeppe Street for the fifth time when the imposing double-storey of Candy’s Hotel registered through his preoccupation. Candy, he whispered. She can help. He found her in her office among Persian rugs and Ot furniture, walls covered with pink and blue patterned wallpaper, a mirrored ceiling hung with six crystal waterfalls of chandeliers and a desk with an Indian mosaic top.

  Sean pushed aside the little man in the black alpaca coat who tried to stop him entering and burst into the room.

  Candy looked up and her small frown of -annoyance smoothed as she saw who it was. Sean... oh, how nice to see you She came round from behind the desk, the bell tent of her skirts covering the movement of her legs so she seemed to float. Her skin was smooth white and her eyes were happy blue. She held out her hand to him, but hesitated as she saw his face. What is it, Sean? He told her in a rush and she listened and when he had finished she rang the bell on her desk. There’s brandy in the cabinet by the fireplace, she said, I expect you are in need of one.

  The little man in the alpaca coat came quickly to the bell. Sean poured himself a large brandy and listened to Candy giving orders. Check the railway station. Telegraph the coach stages on each of the main roads.

  Send someone up to the hospital. Check the registers of every hotel and boarding-house in town. Very well, madame. The little man bobbed his head as he acknowledged each instruction and then he was gone.

  Candy turned back to Sean. You can pour a drink for me also and then sit down and simmer down. You’re behaving just the way she wanted you to What do you mean? demanded Sean. You are being given a little bit of wifely discipline, my dear. Surely you have been married long enough to recognize thatV Sean carried the glass across to her and Candy patted the sofa next to her. Sit down, she said. We’ll find your little Cinderella for youWhat do you mean wifely discipline? he demanded again. Punishment for bad behaviour. You may have eaten with your mouth open, answered back, taken more than your share of the blankets, not said good morning with the right inflection or committed one of the other mortal sins of matrimony, but -- Candy sipped her drink and gasped slightly, I see that time has not given you a lighter hand with the brandy bottle. One Courtney tot always did equal an imperial gallon .... but, as I was saying, my guess is that little Katy is having an acute attack of jealousy.

  Probably h
er first, seeing that the two of you have spent your whole married life out in the deep sticks and she has never had an opportunity of watching the Courtney charm work on any other female before.

  Nonsense, said Sean. Who’s she got to be jealous of? Me, said Candy.

  Every time she looked at me the other night I felt as though I’d been hit in the chest with an axe Candy touched her magnificent bosom with her fingertips, skilfully drawing Sean’s attention to it. Sean looked at it. It was deeply cleft and smelt of fresh violets.

  He shifted restlessly and looked away. Nonsense, he said again. We’re just old friends, almost like - he hesitated. I hope, my dear, that you weren’t going to say “brother and sister”... I’ll not be party to any incestuous relationship... or had you forgotten about that? Sean had not forgotten. Every detail of it was still clear.

  He blushed and stood up. I’d better be going, he said. I’m going to keep looking for her. Thanks for your help, Candy, and for the drink.

  Whatever I have is yours, sir, she murmured, lifting an eyebrow at him, enjoying the way he blushed. I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything. The assurance that Candy had given him wore thinner as the afternoon went by with no news of Katrina. By nightfall Sean was again wild with worry, it had completely swamped his bad temper and even anaesthetized his fatigue. One by one Mbejane’s tribesmen came in to report a blank score, one by one the avenues Candy’s men were exploring proved empty, and long before midnight Sean was the only hunter left. He rode hunched in the saddle, a lantern in his hand, riding the ground that had already been covered a dozen times, visiting the mining camps along the ridge, stopping to question late travellers he met along the network of roads between the mines.

  But the answer was always the same. Some thought he was joking: they laughed until they saw that his face was haunted and dark-eyed in the lantern light, then they stopped laughing and moved hurriedly on. Others had heard about the missing woman; they started to question him, but as soon as Sean realized they could not help him, he pushed past them and went on searching. At dawn he was back at the hotel. Mbejane was waiting for him.