True Places

by Sonja Yoerg

  In the morning, they searched out two herbalists recommended by an ethnobotanist Suzanne had contacted. Suzanne was looking for the pink root of Hydnora abyssinica , the focus of her research. Professor Reiner had brought her to Tanzania to assist with his work—the study of the effect of cattle grazing on plant diversity in the Ngorongoro Crater—but she had secured a small grant to explore the medicinal uses of the oddball plant Hydnora , whose roots were supposedly used to treat intestinal disorders and skin infections. If Suzanne could find it in the market, she might learn more about it from the herbalist. In the bush, she planned to search for the plant itself, a parasite with rhizomes belowground and no green parts at all. After a strong rain, a bizarre—some would say hideous—flower might erupt from the soil, thick walled and scaled on the outside. As it ripened, fleshy, muscled sections peeled back, revealing a pale pink interior like the mouth of a hippo. The flower was male to start with, giving off a putrid stench that attracted dung beetles. After a beetle crawled inside and became encased in a special chamber, the flower changed its sex to female and released the pollen-laden beetle to fertilize the plant on its way out. Suzanne readily admitted she was fascinated by Hydnora ’s unique biology, but that didn’t erase the argument for examining its potential medicinal uses.

  They walked through the fish market en route to the first herbalist. Suzanne covered her mouth and nose with her hand to keep herself from gagging at the smell. The stall to which they were directed was empty. The elderly woman selling sundries next door told Dmitri in broken Swahili that the herbalist had gone to attend to a sickness plaguing his village to the north. Suzanne was only too happy to put distance between them and the fish market, so they hurried along to the second location, a small hut with a rust-riddled roof huddled beside a modern pharmacy. A middle-aged man squatted over a burlap mat. He wore a tall, straight-sided headpiece made of red felt and decorated with feathers. A string of small gourds hung from his neck. He was consulting with another man, who appeared very frail. The herbalist spoke rapidly while he packaged a ground concoction into folds of stiff paper. After the customer left, Dmitri described the Hydnora root as best he could. Suzanne scanned the rough shelves at the back of the stall for a tinge of pink.

  Dmitri turned to her. “He knows it. Says it’s very good medicine.”

  “But he doesn’t have it?”

  He shook his head. “Pretty much all he sells is what he gave that guy who just left.”

  “What was it?”

  Dmitri shrugged. “It’s for ukimwi .”

  One of the few dozen Swahili words she knew. “AIDS.”

  Dmitri did his best to question the herbalist about other sources of Hydnora , but soon a queue formed behind them, all wishing to obtain “the cure,” as the man put it.

  Suzanne touched Dmitri’s elbow. “We should go.”

  The encounter had sobered them, and they returned to the hotel to gather their belongings. They boarded a twin prop to Arusha, where a driver met them on the landing strip. By late afternoon they arrived at the Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre, an array of low buildings slung against the base of a series of worn hills. Suzanne climbed out of the Land Rover and stood with her back to the hills. She stared out at the savanna stretching from her feet to a golden smudge of a horizon, the expanse broken only by sparse stands of fever trees, the sky old and pale. A breeze blew toward her, flattening her long skirt against her legs. She took a deep breath and shielded herself from the letdown she was sure was coming. It was over with Dmitri; she chose to end it in her mind before anything more could take root. Dmitri, with his dark, Mediterranean looks and slow, sensual smile, would distance himself from her, the new college grad. At the research center, others would intrigue him more, scientists from other disciplines, the staff. At the hotel in Dar, Dmitri had been chivalrous, then opportunistic. Here, where light ruled, and where they were not alone, he could shake himself off like a dog and pad away.

  But he did not. The first night in the bush, he saved a seat for her at dinner, placed his hand on her knee while they ate, and made a point of including her in the conversation. There was nothing sexier than being taken seriously. Sleeping together wasn’t straightforward in the dorm-style sleeping quarters, but Dmitri put his scientific ingenuity to good use, carving out slots in time and space for them to have sex. Suzanne responded to him as she had to no other man, and this confused her, since with each passing day, her flight response was dampened and she found herself thinking less and less about exit strategies. Dmitri was ardent but not overly serious, attentive but not clinging, and respectful of her intellect. And their intimacy had not diminished her attraction to him; she could see now that this had been a side effect of her skittishness and mistrust. If she could have faith in a man, her passion would not flag.

  For six long weeks Suzanne allowed herself to slide, inch by inch, into love.

  “You’re beautiful,” Dmitri said every time they made love.

  Then, while watching her study a map or identify a plant before he could: “You’re incredible. Do you know that?”

  One night they sat shoulder to shoulder on the hood of a Land Rover drinking Tusker. In the middle distance, a herd of zebra bowed their heads to the ground and, nearer, a secretary bird stood frozen, then loped on, its head nodding to the slow rhythm of its legs. The sun hung low before falling precipitously to the earth like a meteor, sending up a splash of vermilion into the deepening blue. Suzanne felt wondrously alive in this moment, with the sun-warmed metal underneath her, the buzz from the beer, her skin taut from a day in the sun, her mind slaked by knowledge and possibilities, the wild beauty all around her, this man beside her. This man.

  Dmitri touched her chin with two fingers, turning her face toward him. Her body hummed.

  “You’re perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

  She smiled and allowed the tears pooling in her eyes to fall.

  “Especially like that.”

  “Crying?”

  “No. Being honest.”

  He understood her. She hadn’t had to tell him about her father, show him that rough scar. With him, in those moments, those boundless moments, her father didn’t matter. Neither did her mother. The big, beautiful earth had spun away from her parents and their parody of love. Suzanne was far, far away in every sense. She at last was free, and that inspired confidence. She not only was worthy of love in the abstract but also could trust its sudden appearance in the palm of her hand, the instantiation of it. She had become someone entirely different from the girl at the science fair waiting for the father who never came, or the adolescent daughter of the mother whose confidences and complaints she had no choice but to bear.

  When your childhood is taken from you, what takes its place? Suzanne had thought nothing would. Now she saw she could begin again. She could stand on the equator, where the days were equal to the nights, and find her own balance.

  And as if that were not enough, she was doing the work she had always dreamed of, surrounded by intelligent, dedicated people with similar passion, seeking to unlock the impossibly complex design of nature, all her secrets, triumphs, and mistakes recorded in the life spread around them—animals, plants, fungi, microbes—flourishing and embattled. Biology was everywhere, of course, not just in Africa, but somehow it was more present here. Perhaps it was because humans had originated here, and her ancestral consciousness was being pinged by the sights, sounds, and smells. Suzanne didn’t lean toward the metaphysical, but on the edge of the crater, a vast tureen frothing with life, or in the middle of the savanna, rolling to the horizon, stippled by wildebeests, her sense of wonder seemed too large for her. She was a child in this world, and its student. She was its caretaker and its disciple.

  She was growing here in Tanzania, where the light was strong and pure.

  She was not a weed.

  As her departure for the States neared, Suzanne spent long hours driving to likely spots in search of Hydnora . Dmitri was occupied with an intense collec
tion protocol for the grazing research and apologized for not being able to accompany her more often. He planned to stay in Tanzania two weeks longer than Suzanne, returning in time for the fall semester. As she scoured riverbeds and acacia stands for Hydnora , Suzanne imagined their reunion in the States and considered what shape their relationship might take back home. She didn’t allow her thoughts to go too far; it was enough simply to relish the idea of doing ordinary things together—and not having to sneak off to have sex.

  Five days before she was due to leave for home, Tennyson, one of the drivers, suggested to Suzanne they head south along the Kakesio, a seasonal river, toward Ololgumi, where a cluster of umbrella-shaped Acacia gerrardii grew. They bounced along a rutted track for forty minutes before crossing a dry riverbed. Tennyson pointed out the trees and circled them, scanning the branches. “You plant people forget to look up sometimes. See every blade of grass and miss a leopard.”

  The smell of decaying flesh wafted in. Tennyson frowned and leaned out the window. “Might be a kill.”

  Suzanne smiled. “Or something blooming.”

  She got out of the truck and searched the ground, marveling at how the small trees had escaped being hacked down for cattle feed. After a few minutes, she found the scaly tubes of Hydnora sticking out of the ground, a dozen or more. Some of the flowers had opened, the four petals hanging back from the center like thick, fetid tongues. She rushed back to the vehicle for her collection kit and a shovel. Tennyson helped her take root and flower samples from two specimens, noting the location, time, and position. Suzanne took photographs at each stage, shaking with excitement.

  During the drive back to the research center, Suzanne formulated a plan for using Professor Reiner’s industry contacts to obtain an analysis of the anti-inflammatory and antidiarrheal properties of the plant. Tennyson and Suzanne arrived as afternoon shadows were lengthening into dusk. Suzanne thanked Tennyson, dropped the collection kit at the botany lab, and headed for the dining hall. Distracted by her triumph, she barely noticed the couple leaving by the side door of the supply room adjacent to the lab. The center held forty people, not counting staff, and people came and went constantly. Many were strangers to her. But something in this couple’s movement as they disappeared between the buildings snagged her attention. Suzanne veered off the dirt path and followed them.

  She emerged from the alley and stopped. Dmitri was walking away from her, a few yards ahead, his hand on the lower back of the woman beside him. The tip of her blonde ponytail nearly touched his hand. The woman laughed, a tinkling sound, and she tilted her head to peer at Dmitri from beneath her bangs. It was Anneka, a research fellow from Austria who had arrived two weeks ago. Suzanne held her breath as Dmitri touched Anneka’s neck just below her ear, and Suzanne knew he would now kiss her. Suzanne’s stomach dropped. Dmitri bent his head, moving as if directed by Suzanne’s thoughts, his lips an inch away from Anneka’s. Suzanne turned away, horrified, and fled the way she had come.

  She ran past the lab and into the parking area, darting between the vehicles. Someone called out to her but she paid no heed. She could not feel her legs, only the thudding in her temples. Bushes, trees rushed by in a blur. Her lungs ached but she kept running, the image of Dmitri’s face as he bent to kiss Anneka hovering before her no matter how fast she ran. She stumbled on a branch, falling to her hands and knees, palms stinging. She clambered to her feet and took off again, the tall grasses whipping her legs. The brush thinned and she emerged onto the plain, panting, her mouth dry, her lungs in a vise grip.

  A herd of gazelle scattered before her, quick shadows in the failing light. Suzanne slowed to a walk, gasping for air, coughing. Her nose was clogged with tears and her throat was raw. She wandered over a low rise, the vista bare except for a large, rocky outcropping—a kopje—to the west. Strips of magenta cloud paralleled the horizon; the sun had disappeared.

  Suzanne stopped and stared at the outline of the kopje. Blocks of stone on the left and a large tree, perhaps a strange fig, on the right. It seemed distinctive, but she had no recollection of it. She turned around, expecting to see the lights of the research center, but there was only the vague outline of a distant slope. Her mouth felt filled with cotton. How far had she come? She hugged herself against the evening chill and spun in a slow circle, studying each feature she could discern, certain that she would recognize a landmark, shake her head at her own foolishness, and head back while there was still light.

  But nothing looked familiar. She began to walk away from the sunset, down the slope she had climbed. She knew she had come through brush, but how long ago was that? The thought of entering a thicket in full darkness terrified her; she would surely become lost. A darker area about a half mile away might be the brush she had emerged from. But then why couldn’t she see any lights? Her throat closed and her hands went cold. She was just as lost out in the open as she would be in the brush. In her despair, Suzanne lowered herself onto the ground and covered her head with her arms. She imagined Dmitri with his arms around Anneka in a quiet corner of a room, or in bed. Nausea rose from her stomach; she clenched her teeth to keep from vomiting.

  She was so very stupid. Stupid enough to be taken in by his charms, to believe he was a good man who cared for her, would perhaps love her one day, one day soon. She was unbearably stupid.

  A memory surfaced, unbidden. A week ago—not more than ten days, anyway—she’d had dinner with Dmitri, then lingered after he’d gone, talking to two women about their cheetah research. She eventually left and stopped by the lab, having forgotten her notebook there. Dmitri was at a computer and Anneka had one hip on the desk, her foot wedged in the rungs of Dmitri’s chair, flip-flop lying on the floor. As Suzanne played the scene in her mind, Anneka had lowered her foot just then, had adjusted her posture at the sight of Suzanne, and yet Suzanne had not noticed at the time. She had not seen until now how Anneka’s initial expression upon seeing Suzanne was cold and vanquishing before it shifted to a smile, how the reverse trajectory of Anneka’s foot led to Dmitri’s crotch. Suzanne had not seen this, or perhaps a million other things.

  All summer her love for Dmitri had been like falling into an icy lake. The cold took her breath away—she gasped—but it was not truly cold at all. It was refreshing, awakening, cleansing. She’d never felt so alive, her blood buzzing with life. But what she had not paid attention to was the numbing of her toes and fingers, how the cold spread to her center, and to her brain, until she could not see what was in front of her. That’s how frozen she had become. She should have known the truth all along. She thought that because she had finally fallen in love, Dmitri must love her, too. It had never occurred to her he might not.

  A hyena whooped in the distance, sending a chill down her spine. Several more hyenas joined in, this group closer. Were they hunting? She tried to remember whether they called to each other before hunting, but her mind was scrambled by her anguish. If she had to wait until morning to find her way back, where was the best place to hide? Not the kopje, that was certain. Animals congregated there.

  All at once, her heartbeat was thunderous in her ears and a searing pain drove into her chest. Sweat poured from her forehead, her underarms. She swayed and braced herself against the ground with her arms, too dizzy and weak to hold herself upright. She was having a heart attack. She would die right here, right now. Her heart beat like that of a hummingbird, and her entire body was awash with terror. She was dying. The pain in her chest engulfed her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Please stop. Let me die. Please stop. Please.

  She curled into a ball, whining with fear, her throat closing around the sound. She could not feel her fingers or her toes. She was dying.

  A chorus of hyena whoops and cackles. Insidious laughter.

  Suzanne’s heartbeat slowed, and her chest pain eased. She lifted her head. Pitch black except for a hint of blood red on the western horizon. No moon.

  She sat up and hugged her knees. Her scalp and back were da
mp with sweat, and she shivered. Slowly her mind calmed, and her thoughts ordered themselves.

  What had happened? A heart attack? It seemed so unlikely.

  She revisited her decision not to try to find her way back and concluded that wandering around in the dark was more likely to compound her problems than solve them. She climbed the slope again; a higher position seemed better. She would sit tight, hope any predators nearby left her alone, and wait for morning. Maybe someone would notice her missing before then. Not Dmitri, perhaps, but someone. She was forlorn and exhausted, but the desperation she should have felt evaded her. The only thing she desired was never to feel the unfettered panic and sense of impending death she had just experienced.

  The sky was clear, and stars shone like sun glinting off a lake of black water. She was small and alone and terrified that her heart would begin racing at any moment, as if it knew of danger greater than a ranging pack of hyenas or a stalking leopard, dangers deeper and wider than she could ever imagine.

  She held herself very still, dismissing the idea of looking for a stick or stone with which to defend herself. She would trust in being inconspicuous, knowing full well that her scent was already in the nostrils of animals a mile away. There was nothing she could do.

  On her right in the distance, a pair of lights bounced and wavered, partially blocked by vegetation. The sound of an engine rose above the rush of the breeze.

  She stood, tears flooding her eyes at the possibility of rescue. She waved uselessly.

  The vehicle was heading toward her, but obliquely. She started down the slope to intercept it, searching her memory for any information about the terrain. She started to run, but then slowed again, wary of alerting animals nearby. She listened hard for a telltale snort or footfall, and when she perceived the vague outline of a stand of brush, she veered away. Buffalo were more dangerous than hyenas or lions.