Binstead's Safari

by Rachel Ingalls

  He said, “You know, I’ve been thinking of giving up the academic life.”

  “Yes, that might be a good thing. All your working life you’ve studied these stories. Why?”

  “It’s a true picture of the world. The poetic world, not what we see around us. There isn’t any place for heroes there.”

  “I’m sure there is, if you look. There are always going to be heroes. As long as there are challenges or dangers or injustices. But that wasn’t why you went into that particular field, was it—to study heroes?”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Of course not. I’m just asking. You know me: I never think of the really good remark till about a week afterwards. Anyway, if I wanted to be sarcastic, it’s much too late.”

  “Don’t say that. Please. Nothing’s too late.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. “I think I’m going to try to sell my paintings as a business. You know: for a living.”

  “You can’t. That’s all changed now. The baby changes everything.”

  “It’ll be freelance, part-time.”

  “Even if it’s part-time, you won’t have time for it.”

  “You know, Stan, I’m still not sure if we’re getting a divorce or not.”

  “Are you crazy? Of course not. Not now.”

  “Oh. The baby?”

  “Of course, the baby. What do you think?”

  “What I think is that the continuation of our marriage depends on whether or not we can get along together. And if we can’t, it’s going to be much worse with a baby than it ever was without one. Like I said.”

  If she ever did try to do something about a divorce, he’d find some way of getting custody of the child. He wouldn’t threaten unless she became completely unreasonable. He’d wait. And she’d come to her senses. After all, she didn’t really mean it; this was a whim, like any other whim of a pregnant woman. She felt powerless to resist the force of nature within herself, so she was wielding as much power as she could over him. Better not say that, either. A few years ago, he would have. He could have explained anything to her and she would just have said, “Yes, Stan.”

  It would be all right. She had become so different already. That was why she had been refusing him and been distant, as though she were constantly listening for something. It was just the child, that was all. Perhaps that was the cause of everything else, too—her new beauty, her ease and charm with strangers, her radiance towards the rest of the world and her ability to draw everyone to her. It was the pregnancy. Even her clumsy paintings had about them a delightfulness that spoke directly to other people; they were part of some living design.

  It was important that he too should find such a design for himself. It seemed to him now that he had been searching for it, without realizing, for many years.

  And now, so he believed, he had found the key at last in the history of this character Lewis, a man about whom people had fantasies. The story of Lewis would be the basis of his best work—a popular study of the mysticism of leadership, The Life of a Hero: how that life became set into phrases and rituals and scenes to be acted out, how people talked about it. He would outline its development up to the stage where the discussion of events in the life became religion—a chain of symbols with their own rhythm and pattern, a large and potent drama to which the smaller lives of ordinary people made constant reference.

  But the truth, the real story, was that the man had been just an opportunistic exploiter of black labour and credulity, and perhaps tribal prejudices too. A con man. He hadn’t been any more of a hero than Sandy.

  *

  They all met by the tea tent. Ian said something felt strange about the morning; he could tell that none of his men wanted to see the thing through. They were convinced that the lion was an emblematic figure and that it would never harm them if they left it alone. It was good luck. To hunt it would be a bad thing.

  “Not religious, exactly,” he said. “Let’s say the idea they have is one of superstitious reverence. They consider it a magical being.”

  Nicholas said, “Well, I don’t know that one can blame them so much. He rather has that look about him.”

  The sky turned from black to grey, from grey to an ebbing back of the darkness and then to a true balance between light and shade. Nicholas said, “Millie, the lion always walks towards you. He may be looking for your scent, or a sight of the clothes and colours you wear, or your face, your hair, some such thing. Would you mind walking to and fro? Only just here—it won’t be far away. We’ll be able to protect you at every moment. You might draw him out, if he’s there. It’s all right, Stan. Look, you can see.”

  “Okay,” she said. She stepped forward, although she hoped in spite of her nervousness that the lion would never be hurt and especially would never be caught. It would be better off dead than captured. This lion was entirely different from any others she had seen in zoos, and even from all the other wild ones around them on the safari. She was pretty sure that Nicholas felt the same: he’d shoot to kill if he had to, not to capture.

  She began to walk out from the circle of tents, away from cover, backwards and forwards. The air was cool and sharp, the stars fading, grey-bluish light all around turning paler. It was on a morning like this, many years ago—back in her childhood—that she had been running for a train with her parents and sisters, all of them carrying luggage. They had missed the train. And after the disappointment of the moment when they knew it was gone, her father, she remembered (who had laughed), told them that there would be another train and they’d catch that one instead. There was always another train, until one day the last one came and that was your only chance. Her father hadn’t told them that part.

  Stan, she thought, this is the story you want. It’s always been the same story, all along. And I forgive you, what you did to me, and to us. Everybody does those things, me too—how can people help it? It’s all a mess. I’m not sorry. In spite of everything, I wouldn’t take back the beginning years.

  To her left, from out of the twilight, behind the shape of Nicholas’s tent, she heard a cough.

  She stopped. The others had heard too, but waited to see what would happen next. She took a step forward and to the left. Nicholas, with Ian close behind him, began to glide ahead in a silent, stooping walk. Stan approached from his side, but more diffidently, breaking his stride every few seconds to peer around him.

  They saw Millie, like a shadow, move as though floating or swimming, and then halt. The lion gave a deep, echoing cough, for which Stan had been stretching his hearing so hard that he didn’t immediately realize the sound was there.

  She stayed where she was. And then, just as the sky started to brighten, they saw the lion pace heavily from around the back of the tent and pad slowly forward towards her.

  Ian drew in his breath. Ajuma whispered something to himself. Pippa sat silent and worried. Stan could hardly believe what he was seeing: it was a tremendous animal, enormous and wonderfully embodying all the majesty anyone would expect a lion to have, but which the real ones seldom possessed. A lion of lions.

  It moved forward. A barrier of silence enveloped its approach; not even the night had been so still. It came nearer. And just as Millie was evidently about to take one more step, a shot rang out. The lion sprang away, heading for open land. Nicholas cursed furiously at Amos, who had fired.

  “I didn’t know I was doing it. It was like magic. My finger closed.”

  “Never mind,” Ian said. “We’ll track him from here.”

  Millie came walking back. She said, “That was much too close. You almost hit him. You almost hit me.”

  “Accident,” Amos said.

  “Well, it did what it was supposed to. He’s gone, now. If he comes back tomorrow, we just do it again and he’ll stop. Right?”

  “It’s still pretty dark,” Stan said, “but that looked to me like the biggest lion I’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t you say? Wasn’t that bigger than average?”

  “Yes,” N
icholas said. “Superlative, in every respect. But I agree with Millie. It’s hardly necessary to shoot him. A beast of that calibre should be left to sire more like him.”

  “We’re allowed to hunt lions on our licence, aren’t we?”

  “One or two.”

  “Well, that’s the one or two I want. Let’s go.”

  *

  Tom and Mahola brought the food and drove the skinners when it was necessary; most of them walked with the rest of the party. For some reason, although he hadn’t been hit at all, the lion was moving very slowly. Twice they saw him ahead of them in the distance. He seemed to have an ability to calculate how long it would take for them to be ready to kill after spotting him. Stan had all his telescopic sights lined up the second time, but that was just the moment Julius chose to be a little tardy in handing up the rifle; he had never hesitated before, not once. Nicholas said something in a language that wasn’t Swahili.

  Millie thought: He’s told the gunbearers to do everything possible to prevent anyone from getting this lion. If the others catch on, or insist on carrying their own weapons, then someone can always fall over or knock up an arm and make an excuse—for instance, just that moment noticing that the lion is of a proscribed type, then being mistaken, then not being sure about that after all.

  Stan became more excited than he had ever been on a hunt. First of all, that glimpse in the dawn light when it came forward out of the indistinct greys of its background: stealthily, and all at once, recognizably, there in front of them—immense and powerful, a foreign being, which was walking easily and without caution straight towards Millie, as though it knew her.

  The moment had been so extraordinary that it had seemed to hang in the air for a time, without movement. He had felt almost entranced, as if something had been revealed to him by the appearance of the creature: an animal whose picture was as familiar to his childhood as the teddy bear but now astonishingly magnified to his perceptions by the nearness, and the enormity of experience. Only after it charged away out of camp did he realize that he had also been stupefied with terror.

  Now each time the lion showed itself to the hunters, he felt an electric awareness of its presence, unlike anything he had known before. And this was not like chasing other game; he sensed that the lion was in command. It was leading them to where it wanted them to go.

  Once, it rested as if to sleep. They watched for nearly ten minutes to see if it would move away from the clump of dry bushes it had chosen, but nothing happened. Amos suggested creeping along the ground and taking it by surprise. But from the place he had selected, it was definitely the lion that would be doing the watching. There would be no question of surprise.

  “Then we make him charge,” Oliver said.

  What a cowardly thing to do, Millie thought. He wasn’t hurting anyone, and they were miles away from the camp now. He wasn’t even a threat.

  She too had been fascinated by the way the animal had seemed to lure them on, as though trained to do it. She wondered if it might be his, the one he had told her about.

  Ian and Nicholas looked at each other, signed to Joshua, and started down the slope. Stan stayed with Pippa and Millie above, and saw how the lion waited. It stayed where it was until the hunters reached just that point where the background dropped low enough to become invisible behind the bushes, and then it walked away.

  He turned towards Julius, who held up his hand. To shout the information might make the lion put on speed.

  He watched Ian and Nicholas work their way around to where they realized what had happened. Nicholas motioned for the rest of them to join him. Julius remained, to keep watch in case the lion moved again from the place where they had seen him go, sliding behind another screening bank of bushes.

  Three times the lion employed the same trick. It was now mid-afternoon and Ian was heated and profane.

  Stan said, “Have you ever seen such a sneaky bastard? Ever had a lion do this kind of thing to you before?”

  Nicholas shook his head. He was amused. He looked over to where Julius and Joshua stood and said, “Let’s throw in the sponge.”

  “Yes,” Millie said.

  “Yes, let’s,” Pippa agreed. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “Not on your life.”

  “He’ll just go on,” Nicholas said. “Leading us a merry dance. In country like this, he could keep it up indefinitely.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Stan said.

  “It’s repeating everything,” Pippa said to Ian, “but so are we. I don’t understand why we keep doing the same thing. If we fanned out to the sides and blocked the back way, then we’d have him in a circle.”

  “It’s not worth it,” Nicholas said.

  “We’d make him charge, and that would end it.”

  “Possibly. I don’t think I’d really want to be in the way of this chap when he’s on the warpath. Nor should I care to be shot by someone else in the circle.”

  “Well, not a real circle. If you’re really going on with this, it would be a waste to go back to camp when we’ve come all this distance and never tried to force his hand.”

  “She’s right,” Stan said. “That goddamn animal gets us where he wants us every time, and all we’ve been doing as far as he’s concerned is just follow orders.” He was in favour of going in and taking the lion. But—although he didn’t say it—he wanted to do the shooting himself. After a whole day of traipsing around and being strung along, he felt that he had earned the right to the kill.

  Millie saw that his eyes were shining and his jaw set. She thought he was probably going to try to work himself into a position where he could beat everyone else to the first shot.

  “I’ll come too,” she said.

  “Not in your state. You stay here.”

  “You might need me to make the lion come out.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll have him cornered. He’s going to be furious. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  “I can just stand there.”

  Nicholas said, “Better not,” and Pippa told her, “I’ll be stopping here.”

  “You can stand near Ajuma,” Ian said, “if you don’t get in the way.” He detailed Julius to go with Stan and, after one more look at the clumped island of bushes where the lion now lay hiding, they all started off, leaving Pippa behind with Oliver. Millie would be all right; she was a good length behind Ajuma.

  Nicholas and Stan took the sides. They kept on going after the others pulled up and waited. Then Ian followed behind Nicholas. Joshua and Amos trailed through the centre line of the semicircle.

  Stan thought the approach was wonderful. He was frightened and exhilarated at the same time, realizing that there was or soon could be a possibility of panic breaking out around him, but enjoying the thought. He knew all the separate leaves of every bush his eye fell on. He had memorized each single inch.

  Everything seemed all right until he stole a look back and realized that the person coming along behind him was not Julius but Millie, and that she was walking as carelessly as if she had been sauntering through a park. He wanted to shout at her, yet he didn’t dare. He made a sign with his hand, for her to get down or go back. She ignored it. He couldn’t leave her like that—it was too dangerous. As he went around the curve, he would come to the stretch which they hadn’t been able to see from above. The lion could be anywhere; not just in the bushes, but anywhere at all in the long grass surrounding them.

  He waited for her to catch up with him. She was smiling. She looked as if she were daydreaming of pleasant things. For a moment he felt his chest clamped and squeezed by fear for her and her vulnerability and the extra life he knew she held and shouldn’t be bringing into a place where there was to be a killing. And then he thought: She’s coming because she wants to be near me. She’s looking at me and she’s smiling.

  He put his finger to his lips, motioned her down again, and kept going forward, throwing out small stones as he went. It was only a very short time aft
erwards that Millie, without any kind of warning, ran past him and the lion came out as though shot by a cannon from a hummock of grass where two stones had already landed.

  Joshua, sighting from behind them, said afterwards that Millie had had her arms open. He was the first to bring his rifle up, but even then it was too late.

  The lion was never even hit. It struck, bolted, and was gone before Stan could think of raising his rifle. He saw only the speed of the impact, a flash of the moving body, the open-jawed head, all teeth instead of a face, and a splurge of blood, with Millie twirling in front of him and then suddenly twisted down on the ground, still.

  In the days that followed Millie’s death, Pippa took charge of Stan’s affairs. She saw to it that telegrams were sent off to Millie’s family, and to his. She packed up clothes and papers and paintings.

  They held the funeral not far outside camp, at a spot where Millie and Pippa had often sat in the afternoons: she had said one day how much she liked the place. Alistair came. Rupert had been on his way when his wife was taken ill and so he had to stay with her instead, but several extra men turned up with Alistair’s driver and Robert was accompanied by many friends. The service included a lot of shouting and wailing, especially from a group of people brought along by Odinga. Mourners would suddenly break out, singly or together, with a sound they had decided to contribute. It reminded Stan of a revival meeting. Dr Adler would have loved it.

  Tom looked scandalized when he heard the boys from the cookhouse chanting the same song they had sung when Millie died. They had been singing it almost without a break since then. When Stan questioned Ian about it, he was told it was “just a dirge sort of thing”. He asked Tom what the words were.

  Tom said, “It’s some old—you know, superstition. No good. This isn’t the way of the future, to have these things. We are not back in the old days, believing all that rubbish. We have cars and hospitals and universities. This is like something for the old people.”