African Nights

by Kuki Gallmann

  He was tall and lanky, with straight, dark hair inherited from his Irish ancestors, pale skin with some freckles, and a strange, veiled, deep voice. His most peculiar characteristic was the dancing look of mischief that crept into his disturbing blue eyes, which never blinked and focused on his interlocutor with the disconcerting fixity of a bird. Yet he was much too polite and far too well bred to stare.

  Hugh had the flair for words of the June-born. His stories had colour and force, a cutting poignancy which I found entertaining, and in our long talks lay the core of our friendship.

  Like the sons of the Delameres, of the Longs and of the Powys families, and of a few others, Hugh had been brought up to farm one day the vast family estates on the Kenya Highlands. They were families who belonged to Kenyan history, and to that earlier generation of eccentric, adventurous or aristocratic Kenyan pioneers who had walked their way through Africa against all odds at the beginning of the century, defying disease and heat, wild animals and tsetse flies, unvisited country and unfriendly tribes. Driven by the invincible curiosity to discover the unknown, they followed the dream of adventure and the need to explore intrinsic to the British soul, and they found a new Eden in the Highlands and on the plains of the Great Rift Valley, where they established their dominion.

  They went everywhere on horseback, carving tracks and roads over virgin unwelcoming land. They died of malaria, of mysterious tropical diseases, of septic wounds and festering sores, of native spears or predator’s attack. But they cleared the bush and tilled the fields. They bred prize sheep and pedigree cattle, and they shot the lions or rustlers that tried to kill or steal their livestock. They tamed rivers and harnessed springs, irrigated barren land, and planted wheat and maize in hundreds of thousands of acres. Born within the boundaries, imbued with tradition, of a sheltered Victorian upbringing, they were in fact a tough lot.

  Despite his inheritance, Hugh Cole’s father in time decided to sell Narok to the new Kenyan settlers, as many people in the Laikipia Highlands did.

  One day he gave Hugh some money and a pat on the back and he said to him, more or less, as Hugh himself years later narrated: ‘Good luck to you, my son. Go safely. You are a Cole. You’ll make your fortune.’

  Slightly bewildered, Hugh set off to Australia and New Zealand. So did the English conquer the world in days past. But those days were gone, and it was hard for Hugh to find a place for himself in the new continent.

  During a visit to America to meet his friend Jeremy Block, another exile, studying at a university, Hugh was involved in a horrific accident. On the bend of a mountain road in Colorado, his powerful motorbike flew off the cliff and while Jeremy, who was on the back seat, remained untouched and shattered only his watch, Hugh fractured most of the bones, big and small, in his body, and almost died.

  In Kenya we heard about it, and were desperately worried for him. His recovery took years, and he never quite walked as before. But one day the phone rang and it was my friend Tubby, Jeremy’s father.

  ‘Guess who’s back!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Hugh Cole. He is staying with me. Come to dinner.’

  Much had happened to me in those intervening years. Paolo had died and my son too. But Laikipia was there in all its immense beauty, and Sveva my new angel, my child of hope and new beginning.

  Although he limped and seemed to have grown slightly deaf, he was the same old Hugh, with his chivalrous manners and his well-told stories with outrageous twists; but there was a weariness about him, a new sadness, and of course the amusing hint of a New Zealand accent. He had done a bit of everything down under. Now he was back to see if there was anything more left for him to do here. He came to live with his sister nearby, and I saw him often, having picked up the threads of our friendship. We chatted, we laughed, we spoke of the old days, of people I had lost and he had cared for. My wounds were still open.

  The invitation to explore was tempting, and the promise of adventure always holds for me an irresistible appeal. I was curious about Fifty Guineas’ Pike. So, on the given day, Hugh came up to Laikipia, in the bouncy green pick-up he used to drive like a maniac, in the back of which he always carried a couple of heavy cement bags to steady it. Sveva – who was then four years old – and I jumped in with a basket of sandwiches, and off we went. At Centre we gave a lift to Mirimuk, the head of our security guards, who wanted to visit some of his Turkana relatives over at Narok Estate.

  Hugh had not been back since it had been sold, and of course he still remembered all the short cuts and the best ways through the old bomas, every detail of the place where he had grown up. He managed to keep a poker face and to show no emotion while we passed through the land for which he felt, I knew, such an attachment and which had been the background to so many of the stories he had told me; and I admired him for it.

  We flew over pot-holes and rocks, biting the dust without mercy, as Hugh had always done. There was about him a new recklessness which was difficult to pin-point. I had no idea where we were going, and it seemed to me at times that even Hugh was no longer sure of his destination.

  The landscapes we crossed were breathtaking. Undulating, green hills and open mbogani covered in low filigreed acacia mellifera, sanseveria and euphorbia. The country was much drier and more desert-like than Ol Ari Nyiro. It took longer than I had expected, hours of rough tracks and bounces, but when we arrived, the place was magical.

  One of many kopjes which punctuated the landscape, it probably owed its unusual name to an obscure bet, the nature of which is lost to memory. Fifty Guineas’ Pike was sensational and well worth the long journey.

  At its foot there was a large pond with a waterfall rolling into it, surrounded by palms and immense, sheer, basalt boulders hung with wild flowers and papyrus. There were tracks of baboons everywhere and leopard spoor. Fish darted about in the pond, large silver barbel, looking like the classic images of fish that a child would draw. Water birds. Dragonflies.

  We climbed up the kopje partly pushing and partly carrying Sveva, to the first platform which could be seen from below. There we found ourselves on a flat surface of smooth rock, dotted with deep cylindrical pot-holes, a geological curiosity possibly formed over thousands of years by the erosion of disappeared currents and swirling stones. From here the Ndoto mountains and the North Frontier on one side, and the vast expanse of the entire Laikipia plateau, up to Mount Kenya on the other, stretched as far as the eye could see.

  Peering into one of the pot-holes, most of which held a brackish puddle at the bottom, Sveva discovered a small green grass snake, swimming weakly. It must have fallen in when searching for water, and was unable to climb out. We decided to sacrifice one of the fishing rods that Hugh had cut from a long thin branch, and which was rough enough for the small snake to wriggle up. We lowered it at an angle, and, after circling it a couple of times, the snake started slowly winding its way up – to the sun and life and freedom.

  ‘To Emanuele.’ Sveva’s small voice gave words to my thoughts.

  ‘For Emanuele,’ Hugh and I repeated.

  The memory of my boy’s lost laughter echoed again among the tall grey boulders. He had loved green grass snakes.

  It was soon apparent that Sveva, with her short round legs, would be unable to climb the section of large rocks that led up to the flat stone platform, which was Hugh’s goal, and offered hardly a grip even to us.

  The sun was completing its arc in the sky. Nocturnal noises were beginning to creep in among the sounds of daylight. Hugh therefore decided to climb down and drive round to the back of the Pike, from where the ascent was easier. We drove back along our tracks, and at some stage left the beaten path, cutting across the bush for quite a while, heading in the Pike’s direction. We parked the car in a small clearing next to a grove of acacia. Hugh took a water bottle and, leaving the parking lights on, we set off on foot.

  The sun was fast approaching a chain of hills. Soon it would be dark and we had to hurry. Trusting Hugh’s knowledge of the place I did not think t
o memorize any landmark. The dry yellow grass was tall, the terrain sandy, fairly even, with scattered bushes. Not easy to find tracks here.

  We followed narrow game paths, trying to keep up with him in the tall thorny vegetation which did not allow any view, and along corridors of spiky shrubs, winding their way slightly uphill, silhouetted black against the sky. Finally, we reached the back of the Pike and climbed it.

  The view was spectacular. Magnificent horizons of craters, kopjes and hills, fading in the pale blues and pinks of the sunset, ran out to the foot of Mount Kenya, its peak covered in clouds, from which the full moon was about to rise. It was announced by the silver lining of the clouds and a pearly luminescence at the rim of the horizon.

  Behind us the sun was setting beyond the mountains. Overhead, however, clouds were gathering fast to obliterate the sky and hide the rising moon.

  The wind dropped. The clouds were here to stay. We groaned in disappointment. Still hoping the sky would clear, we chatted, drank some water, sang a song. Suddenly it was pitch dark.

  It was soon apparent that the moon would not become visible for hours tonight. Baboons began to bark their goodnights from the sleeping cliffs; alarmed goodnights, for rather close we heard the unmistakable, rhythmic, rasping voice of leopard. If I had been alone, I would not have hesitated and would have slept there, safe on the flat warm rock. But Sveva was tired and would be hungry, and it could easily rain.

  We descended from the platform by the way we had come, tentatively now, Sveva gripping my shoulders, and we landed in the thick bush. We then tried to find our way back to the car, and it was a mistake. I had a pocket torch, but its tiny light, absorbing and distorting every shape, made the encircling night darker, vaster and confusing. Every bush of mellifera looked like every other, hung with powdery yellow flowers unendingly identical. Every next turn of the sandy game path seemed like the last one. The hills were now invisible, and with no reference we walked fatally in circles.

  Finally Hugh cleared his throat and turned to me. I heard his deep disembodied voice spell out from the shadows what so far we had not dared to admit.

  ‘My friend, I am afraid I have got you lost. I am sorry.’

  At the word ‘lost’ Sveva wailed.

  I had never been lost before. I was surprised how unsettling and undignified the very thought was. Ideas came racing through my mind and failed to find solutions. I became impatient and angry in my dismay. The anger was mostly annoyance with myself, at my stupidity. I should have found out more, looked around better and not allowed such a ridiculous and unnecessary situation to happen. Getting lost indeed. I took hold of myself.

  ‘You brought us here, and you are going to get us out of here.’ I coolly told a crestfallen Hugh, trying to convey in my voice a calm and flippancy I was far from feeling.

  Sveva’s hands clutched my shoulder:

  ‘I want Wanjiru,’ she declared with a hint of defiance in her trembling voice. ‘And the askari and my room. And I want Morby.’ Morby was her beloved soft pink mouse. She must have felt immensely remote from her safe known world, hanging from my back, lost in the African night. I tried to reassure her:

  ‘We shall find the right track any moment. It is great fun to be here. No little girl we know was ever as lucky as you are. Imagine, a real adventure to tell your friends. Now you must help me to guess where to go. In the meantime, we shall find a cosy place to wait.’

  Many times, while looking for lost cattle in thick bush and rocky terrain, with no visibility even in daylight, I had seen Luka, our tracker in the old days, smell the wind as he followed a track he could not see, turning his head here and there and going off in an unlikely direction which was infallibly the right one. I had been curious to know how he could do this, and often asked him to tell me how he managed. He had looked at me in puzzlement, for following an instinct is something impossible to explain. Invariably he had said: ‘Lazima jaribu kufikiria kama nyama, memshaab. Ngombe hapa wataenda kulia kufuata arufu ya maji – hama kutoroka arufu ya simba.’ ‘Try to think like an animal, memsaab. Here a steer would now go right, towards the smell of water, or away from the smell of lion. Cannot you see?’

  So I tried to think like an animal, which meant following my instinct, without resorting to my reason at all. It told me to turn and go in a certain direction. Shortsighted and in the dark, God knows how I could. I prayed we would not meet a buffalo coming to water.

  We advanced tentatively, often to find thorns tugging at our clothes, pulling our hair and scratching our bare legs. I tried hard to see the bright side of things. At least it was not pouring with rain; at least it was quite warm, and the air was balmy with heady scents. It was a beautiful night, after all. I was in Africa where I had always wanted to be and this was a mysterious place, undisturbed by people. This was the quintessential adventure. At every turn of the narrow track I strained my ears to anticipate a grunt too close, a rustle of leaves.

  Amazingly, a white and wider track suddenly opened in front of us, and with unspeakable relief I realized it was the road. But at which point on it? And where was the car – right or left?

  The only wise decision was for Sveva and me to stay right here, with our back to a large shrub for protection, to light a fire to discourage nosy beasts, and to wait. Hugh would go on looking for the car. If by sunrise he had not returned, I would set out on my own to find the car tracks. There was no sensible alternative. Staying where we were was safer than wandering about with a small child in the darkness near a watering hole. I was certain that all sorts of animals would come to drink there in the night; I remembered the spoor we had seen.

  We gathered some sticks and larger branches by the light of my little torch which was beginning to glimmer only tremulously now, and Hugh lit a fire with a dexterity learned in the free days of his childhood. The orange flames leapt high, crackling, and the shadows receded to a wavering circle with borders of mystery from which countless eyes seemed to peer at us.

  The fire lifted my spirit, and Sveva lay on my khaki sweater, quiet now, and listening, like I was.

  Hugh stood a moment and took his neck scarf off.

  ‘I shall tie this to a bush at the point where I leave the road.’ He grinned once. ‘Are you sure you will be all right?’

  He bowed slightly and was gone.

  Around our small fire, and its warm halo of light, like a dot in the universe, the night was black and vast and alive with unknown, magnified noises. Red and brown ticks sidled away fast from the flames, running diagonally like minute crabs. I kept telling Sveva stories, without a pause, to cover the yelling laughter of the hyena, and the threatening voices of the invisible and of the unknown. I sat with my child out in the African night, which for once did not belong to us, feeding the fire with thorny branches of mellifera, and trying not to think, or rather planning what to do, if the lion which we heard roaring from the hills decided to come to drink at Fifty Guineas’ Pike. My ears strained to catch all whispers, to interpret secret shuffles, a sudden roar that froze my throat for a moment, trotting of heavy hooves along dry paths.

  My Italian past was far away that night. Yet there was a primal beauty and privilege in being here as we were: where was the rest of the world?

  With the infallible knowledge of a child born and brought up in the bush, Sveva broke the silence now and again.

  ‘Mummy, hyena.’ Something had yelled.

  Or, on a close trumpeting: ‘Elephant!’

  Something coughed: ‘A leopard!’

  A burst of loud, untidy barks: ‘… and he is eating a baboon, Mummy.’

  She was probably right. African noises can tell their story far more eloquently than human words.

  Looking at the fire and nursing it, time ticked by with the ancient sound of crackling embers until, my watch forgotten, my head lost in thought, a peace descended, and the awareness of being safe. A total calm and the feeling of being in the right place.

  Gradually, and then abruptly, the great clouds par
ted like waves, and in a crystal clear sky a cool full moon sailed silent and aloof above, ignoring us. It was hard to believe that this was the same moon people were watching at this same time from a London window or a Venetian gondola. The unknown hills were clear-cut against a translucent sky, and a deafening concert of crickets and frogs erupted to greet the moon. The nearby sounds were friendly, and soon became a concert of which we, too, were a part. There was a silvery magic about the place and us, alone and vulnerable, yet accepted by the creatures of the night. I let the fire quieten down, twinkling, subdued and no longer needed.

  I took Sveva in my arms, her warmth and child’s fragrance comforting and safe. I knew well that I would never again capture the essence of Africa as I had tonight. Time went by. I was happy. And it was with regret, not relief, that much later I heard the muffled hum of an approaching engine and car lights put an end to the spell.

  We laughed with abandon, like reckless children. I covered the glowing cinders with sand and got into the car, but as the sun began to rise and the familiar shapes of the Laikipia hills came into focus, we grew silent. Sveva was sleeping, and the adventure receded like all dreams at dawn, to become a memory.

  14

  The Cobra Who Came from the Dark

  Todo dejò de ser, menos tus ojos.*

  Pablo Neruda,

  Cien Sonetos de Amor, Noche XC

  The feeling lingers of a drifting young presence below the shadows of the yellow fever trees in the night garden. A voice comes sometimes with the voice of the wind, joining the starlings’ song in the full moon and the crystal calls of the tree-frogs from the fishpond. A faint voice, like the echo of my memories, and the unreachable essence of dreams.

  It is then, when I am alone in the heart of my home, protected by my dogs sleeping content around me on the carpet, the fire’s flame subsiding into breathing, flickering embers, that he comes back. In the quiet room, behind my desk, there is suddenly a presence. I do not turn my head. I keep watching the enlargement of the photograph hung on the wall, the one taken by Oria after that last picnic at the springs.