by John Fowler
“Well, what do I do?” I asked the agent, finally snapping out of my stupor.
“You can go to our office,” the man responded, as he pointed down the concourse to my left.
The door to the small Sabena office was open when I arrived, and I stood in the doorway trying to look pleasant.
“Hello,” I said, “I need help.”
This agent didn’t even look up at me as he shuffled through some papers on his desk. When I knocked on the door frame, he turned away from me and loaded a piece of paper into his typewriter. I knocked again, and entered the room, to where I stood over him at his desk.
“They wouldn’t let me on my plane,” I said, loud and clear.
“Which flight?” he mumbled.
“To Kigali, Rwanda.”
Finally he looked up at me.
“The next one leaves on Monday. Same time,” he said curtly, “come back then.”
With that, he turned abruptly away, and I exited. Outside, the doorway, I had one more question.
“Can I use this same ticket?”
“Yes, be sure to bring it,” he snapped.
Before turning to leave, I noticed that someone had written the letters for S A B E N A with a black marker down the right side of the door frame. Next to each letter, they spelled out a mantra of the time for this airline with a sullied reputation.
Such
A
Bloody
Experience
Never
Again
My problems had just begun. As with everything in my Spartan college life, I had budgeted down to the wire, and barely had money for a cab back into town, let alone a hotel room. Even if I could stay at the YMCA, or a youth hostel, I didn’t have money for food for two full days. I had never been one to panic, so I just stood, calm but dumbfounded, in the center of the concourse, running the reality of my situation through my mind, watching the travelers coming and going. What was I going to do?
Professor Cunningham von Sommerin was an unmistakable man, and it was my good fortune that Terry had introduced him to our study-abroad group the previous summer outside the Nairobi Museum. One of Africa’s most renowned ornithologists, he had even posed for a picture with us, standing out from us American students as if from another era: tall, thin, and bespectacled; with his long wispy beard, he looked like a professorial wizard from another era. I had admired our group photo often enough that I knew just then who I was seeing across the throng, standing near the airport’s row of ticketing counters, among a group of other silver-haired men and one woman.
“Well, I’m afraid we’re just on our way to Malawi for a bird census,” Dr. von Sommerin said, upon hearing about my dilemma. “What will you be doing in Rwanda?”
After telling them I had been working with the mountain gorillas at Karisoke, they took great interest. One man, Karl Merz, an elder Swiss with a long shock of white hair over his ears, had been their driver, and was heading back to town.
“You must come vith me!” Karl declared decisively, in his German-Swiss accent. “I must take you home to meet my vife.”
“Oh . . . um . . . okay.” I stammered, while no alternatives ran through my mind.
I picked up my bags and was soon swept away back into Nairobi, where Karl stopped in at the historic Norfolk Hotel, saying he had to meet briefly with someone in the hotel’s offices. As he disappeared, I wondered if he had stopped to call his house to let his wife know he was bringing home a foundling. As I waited, I perused the garden and aviaries filled with native birds. A bright green Fischer’s turaco swooped down in a flash of red flight feathers to a perch and cocked his red-and-white-trimmed eye suspiciously at me through the wire. I remembered the brilliant bird from my visit there the year before.
Back in the car, Karl and I continued westward, out of the city on Ngong Road, and upward. I could see the Ngong Hills ahead of us, and the Aberdare mountain range beyond to the north. I didn’t really know where I was going to end up.
“Vee live in Karen,” Karl said. “You know of Karen?”
“Um, well, no . . .” I stammered. “I don’t think so.”
“The writer, Karen von Blixen? She wrote as Isaak Dineson. Out of Africa, ja?”
“Oh, ja . . . I mean, yeah . . . yes.” Karl said ja so commandingly with his clipped German accent, I felt I had to respond in kind, before catching myself. The book he mentioned hadn’t yet gained much attention in the United States, but I remembered the title from its mention in J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. I had always longed to read it, but had never found it.
Before long, we were up in the cooler air of the Ngong hills, Nairobi’s skyline forming the backdrop to our commute. Karl veered his car left into the center of the little town of Karen. There, in a grassy, park-like setting stood a sturdy old wooden wagon with a bench seat.
“Dat vas Karen Blixen’s vagon,” Karl explained. “She used to drive it all der vay into Nairobi from her coffee plantation here.”
Satisfied at the sight, my gracious new host made a U-turn, and soon we were into forested suburb just off Ngong Road on Mwitu Drive. Rounding the tree-lined street, scattered woodlands gave way to a neighborhood of expansive lawns, tucked among surrounding acacia forest, dotted with grand homes of stone or stucco, some Tudor, some Italianate, but none more beautiful and captivating than what came into view as we turned into Karl’s circular driveway. There before me was my new, if only temporary, digs—a white stucco manse of colonial grandeur, adorned with flaming pink bougainvillea and surrounding gardens. I didn’t mind a bit.
Karl’s wife Anna emerged from the house as we arrived, and Karl introduced me. In her late forties, she was tall and robust with a short crop of dark hair. At the mere mention of my thwarted attempt to get back to Rwanda and the mountain gorillas, Anna greeted me heartily with her quite proper English accent.
“Well, by all means, get your things!” my new hostess exclaimed. “Do come inside!”
Soon I was plunged into an overstuffed chair with an ice cold Tusker in hand, although it was not yet noon. Three well-mannered German shorthaired pointers rounded out the welcoming, while Anna wanted to know all about me and what I’d been up to. Having done his job of delivering me so courteously, Karl relaxed, letting Anna take over. The view through a wide bay of windows in their large living area at the back of their home revealed the full graciousness of their estate, surrounded by spreading acacias.
“This was actually the home of the Leslie-Melvilles,” Anna said, “before they got so involved with giraffes and buying the other place not far from here.”
“The giraffes?” I asked, before making the connection, “You mean Daisy Rothschild?” I well knew this story, from magazine and film, and couldn’t believe I had landed in the middle of so much history.
“Yes, indeed,” Anna said. “We had just moved here from West Africa. Karl was retiring from his construction business in Ghana and we got really lucky finding this place when we did. We bought it at just the right time, at a good price.”
After our chat, their gentlemanly Kenyan home cook, Joseph, announced that lunch was ready, and we adjourned to the dining room where the table was set. Anna and Karl chatted away, seemingly energized by having a visitor.
“I did visit the Virungas once,” Anna said, with a laugh, “and ended up having to sit on a poacher!” She went on to explain how she and a group of friends went on a guided hike into the park from the Uganda side. Park guides ended up running into illegal hunters, immediately capturing one and asking Anna’s group to detain him while they pursued another.
“Our guide laid the poor little man on the ground in front of us,” Anna said, laughing, “and, all I could think to do was sit on the poor bugger with my big rump, so I did just that!”
After a lunch of roasted chicken and a mountain of salad from their vegetable garden, the chef poured us a round of shots, brandy for Karl and me, while Anna requested her usual: a shot of half-vodka and half-port.
&
nbsp; “Well, I guess I’ll get back to my writing,” Karl said, after dumping the generous remains of the salad onto his plate and devouring it.
As Karl headed upstairs, Anna led me through the dining room’s glass doors, followed by her dogs, to her aviaries just beyond the patio. There amid stands of giant red salvias, towering orange crossandras, and stands of golden cannas, under a canopy of tall crepe myrtles covered in mauve blooms, she kept an eclectic mix of Australian and African finches and small parrots. Some flew into shrub plantings at our approach, while others bounced from perch to perch expectantly, as their mistress opened a small feed bin.
“In addition to everything else,” I said, marveling at her collection, “I’m fascinated by birds.”
“Oh, so am I!” Anna responded, as she entered the first aviary to pour a scoop of seed mix into a hanging feed dish.
“And Africa certainly has some great ones.”
“Indeed, as does Australia.”
I fed the water hose through the caging as Anna flushed and refilled each water bowl.
“Believe it or not, I once saw a wild kiwi in New Zealand.” Anna said, to my great surprise, knowing how rare these flightless birds were.
Anna went on to describe the experience as I followed her with the water hose to the next aviary.
“Friends I was staying with said that if I was willing to get up before dawn and walk to a specific spot at the edge of the forest, I’d be guaranteed to see one just before sunrise.”
Dragging the hose, I followed Anna to the next aviary, as she continued her story.
“So of course, I was certainly willing, and the next morning, just like they had said, at that exact spot, in the dim light, a real live kiwi came scampering out of the forest.”
“Really? That’s amazing!”
“Indeed, it was! At first, it was so dark, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. They had warned me to be very still, so I didn’t move, and before I knew it, it was at my feet. Then I could see it clearly, probing its long beak into the leaf litter, scampering here and there. It nearly went right between my feet!”
“I’d love to see that myself, someday.”
“Yes, it’s a shame what’s happened to so many of New Zealand’s birds that once were all over those islands. The rats and cats and so many things brought in by settlers have just nearly wiped them out.”
Anna exited and secured the last aviary, and I rolled up the water hose. In a side paddock, beyond the aviaries, a pair of thoroughbreds, one bay, one chestnut, grazed lazily, tails swishing at occasional flies. They lifted their heads and sauntered toward us as we approached. Anna entered their stalls from a side door.
“I’m involved with a few local conservation groups,” she told me, as she reappeared from inside the paddock and greeted her horses with hearty pats, “but I want to do so much more. It all makes me so angry, really, especially what’s happening to the black rhinos. They’ll all be gone soon! And nobody’s really doing enough about it.”
As Anna tethered and groomed each of her steeds, we chatted, comparing the plights of gorillas and rhinos. As a conservationist, Anna’s respect for Dian Fossey’s achievements was obvious. I was just learning how to skirt the details of life at Karisoke and the particulars about Dian, focusing instead on the gorillas and Karisoke’s well-intended mission of research and conservation.
When we returned inside, Karl was banging away raucously on an upright grand piano against the far wall of the large living area, his hands and arms bounced boisterously to the rhythm of something akin to a German folk tune.
“Ja, she takes care of dogs, birds, horses undt a husband,” he shouted above his own clamor.
Anna smiled, unfazed by the din until the dogs began to bark. At that, she peered out the bay of windows toward the back of the lawn, and her smile became a scowl.
“Oh John, the monkeys are playing bloody buggers in my garden!” she exclaimed. “Would you mind taking the dogs and running them out of there?”
At that, the three big dogs skittered and slid to the door, nearly tripping me as I opened it. In the maelstrom of their bravado, I trailed the pack across the wide green lawn to the farthest corner of the grounds. A large troupe of Sykes monkeys, Cercopithecus albogularis, adults and juveniles, momentarily stared wide-eyed at our approach before bounding away in a flourish of soft grays, ambers, and white hair, to the fence line and upward into the trees. The acacias’ branches and ferny fronds bounced wildly under the springing leaps of each as they fled in chaotic dispersal, their long tails trailing behind. I watched with the barking dogs from below, as the monkeys settled down among the treetops, one magnificent male who remained closer than the others, daringly glared at me with glowing amber eyes, and shook his branch at me as I admired his bold white collar of fur, and finely speckled gray mantle.
“We’re very near Nairobi Park here, so, of course we get all sorts of animals.” Anna informed me back inside. “Even the occasional leopard, I dare say.”
Karl and Anna made for gracious hosts, bestowing upon me a lavish respite in stark contrast to my Spartan existence at Karisoke. That evening, Joseph served me another Tusker before beckoning us to a delicious dinner of Nile perch, followed by the same garden fresh salad that had survived the monkeys. Same as for lunch, Karl enthusiastically finished off the remaining mound of salad greens.
Afterward, Karl opened a bottle of wine and poured us each a glass back in the great room, while Anna bid good night to Joseph, who lived somewhere nearby.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Anna said, “and Karl and I will be going for our ride. I’m sorry we only have two horses.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I interjected, “Is it okay if I go for a walk?”
“Oh, but of course.” Anna said, “It’s a lovely area for walking.”
I retreated to my spacious sleeping quarters off the upstairs living area, as my hosts bid me good night. My hot soak in the footed tub felt great, and when I emerged just after ten, the house was dark and quiet. Settled into bed, I drifted out of my dream and fell into a deep, restful sleep.
Hearing the morning stirrings, at 7:30 I rolled out of bed, dressed, and was greeted with the offering of coffee in the kitchen, where Joseph was busily preparing eggs, toast, and sausage. After breakfast, Anna and Karl mounted their thoroughbreds and headed across the back lawn trailed by one of their pointers, the scene so idyllic I snapped a picture of them. After they rounded the house and disappeared, I followed on foot down tree-lined Mwitu Drive. The morning air was cool, but not cold, and dry, perfect for walking, and I moved in great strides across the level ground. The stroll felt effortless, conditioned as I was from the daily hikes up and down volcanic slopes.
The few neighbors’ grand homes, mostly obscured by groves of acacias and scarlet flame trees, stood down long lanes on large properties. I strode along, scanning the trees for birds and hoping to catch sight of hornbills, turacos, or parrots. Eventually, I came to a curve in the road, rounding to the left, where trees opened up to patchy clearings. There before me to the right, a pair of Masai giraffes, Giraffa tippelskirchi, towered above, feeding languidly among the highest branches of acacias. Their orange-and-white reticulations glowed boldly in the morning sunlight as they gazed at me indifferently with their shining dark eyes under long lashes. I marveled like I had as a child at the National Zoo, while their long dark tongues wormed out in spirals to ring the tender leaves and draw them back into their mouths. There I lingered with these tallest creatures on the planet, until their foraging took them out of sight into thicker groves beyond.
Back at the house with Karl and Anna, the day took the same course as before, remarkably so, in fact, with beer before lunch, and shots of liquor. This time I tried Anna’s drink of half-port and half-vodka. Not bad at all.
Neither were surprised by my giraffe sighting in the neighborhood.
“Reminds me of the time I was out riding my horse as a young girl in Cornwall,” Anna said, with fond reminiscence, “A
s I rounded the curve of a hillside, there was an elephant!”
“Ja, ja!” Karl muttered, as he polished off the remainder of the garden salad like the day before.
“My father didn’t believe me that night at dinner,” Anna continued, “until, of course, he read next morning that the circus was in town. They had let the elephants out to graze.” Anna laughed heartily at the fond remembrance.
After lunch, Karl went upstairs to peck noisily on his typewriter, before abandoning that for the piano again. Like clockwork, Anna gazed out the window amid the din.
“Oh, John! The monkeys are playing bloody buggers again in my garden!” Anna exclaimed. “Would you please . . . ?”
At that, the dogs and I were unleashed again in our counter-raid, as the brazen Syke’s monkeys retreated once again into the forest’s canopy. As before, the alpha male lingered behind to join in our staring match—me, marveling at his beautiful coat and markings, and he, glaring at me for my bold intrusion.
That evening, a friend of Anna’s was flying in from Perth, Australia for a visit, and Anna asked if I’d go with her to pick the woman up.
“I von’t need to go vis you to zee airport,” Karl said, “as long as dis young man can accompany you, ja?”
I was only too happy to oblige, especially considering all the hospitality they were bestowing upon me.
“Vis John here, you von’t need me,” Karl exclaimed with a sense of drama, as I sat in the passenger seat with Anna at the wheel, “undt John can carry the Morgenstern!”
“The . . . the what?” I stammered.
“The morning star,” Anna interceded. “It’s under your seat there. Go ahead, make sure you can reach it.”
I reached under my seat, and retrieved what at first felt like a hammer, lifting it to reveal a small club. At the end of a short wooden handle was a ball of steel, covered in flattened spikes, like the rays of a three-dimensional Moravian star, but with many more spiky points, otherwise known as a mace.