by Farris, John
The last painting was a family portrait over the fireplace, Donal and Deborah Sherard with Tom, buck-naked, age about a year and a half. Slender Deb held her son serenely on crossed forearms, the crown of his head beneath her chin. She had a straightforward gaze and a large bowie knife on her belt.
Eden had come across Tom on more than one occasion, sitting alone in a favorite leather chair facing the hearth, his walking stick with the gold lion's head across his knees, gazing profoundly at the painting. His mother had died in an accident on the Longonot road when Tom was two. His father's health failed not long after. Bertie's father, Joseph Nkambe, already forty and with grown children, had seen to most of Tom's raising. Joseph was a self-educated man who had elevated his status from gun bearer to a full partnership in Shungwaya Safaris, Ltd., eventually becoming a landholder in the Central Highlands. At fifty-eight and a rich man, he took a fourth wife. Alberta was his last and youngest child, named for the old safari hand who established Shungwaya.
Joseph had a severe, proud face; bewhiskered to hide the out-of-kilter jaw he'd received from an elephant-tossing, as he modestly described one of his many near-death experiences in thornbush and grassy savanna. A cardiologist had limited his use of tobacco to a single pipeful after dinner. He packed his old white pipe, carved from warthog ivory, and settled down on a small sofa next to Bertie, who was wolfing a dish of huckleberry pie, to watch Etan's picture show.
Eden stood behind Tom, who also was sitting to take the strain off a knee shredded by the gun of the assassin who had killed Tom's wife. And Eden's natural mother, the two of them permanently separated soon after Eden's birth.
What a strange, haunted pair we are, Eden thought, looking down at Tom. Wanting to touch him, but she'd never known how.
They were looking at Czarina's elephant family now. Then Eden saw her own rapt, perspiring face, and Pert Kincaid, wearing headphones, listening with half-closed eyes. A mature female elephant came close enough to the Land Rover to shade it with the flapping canopy of one ear. The picture on the TV set blurred momentarily, as if the Rover was moving to the footsteps of the elephants on baked ground.
"Here it comes:" Etan murmured, turning up the sound. His camera panned quickly to pick up the arrival of Karloff as he charged the combi. A cyclone of dust, enraged bellowing. Karloff 's immense head swung side to side, tusks slashing the air above the roofless combi. More faces, frightened, as Tom, Bertie, and the Research Associate ducked below the heavy roll bars away from this potentially lethal saber play. Only Lincoln Grayle had the nerve to look at Karloff, but his face was a blur.
"Now," Etan said, and slowed the action. "This is what I noticed earlier, and tell me if I've completely lost it, darlings."
A dark smudge or shadow appeared on the screen and grew in successive images, achieving a recognizable shape. It seemed to come out of the combi, but there was a problem with depth perception and the unsteadiness of the camera. The shadow creature was moving, leaping, perhaps, at Karloff the elephant, reaching a height of ten feet or more above the ground.
Bertie dropped her fork in her lap.
The image broke up in layers of digital chaos.
"That's all I have," Etan said. "But it looked like a lioness to me, except for its size. Of course there could be a distortion effect. The head is difficult to make out, unfortunately. The image is there for only about two seconds of normal running time. Blink and you've missed it."
"Why don't we see it again?" Joseph suggested, as Eden tightened a hand on Tom's shoulder. He looked up at her, puzzled by her intensity. Bertie was watching both of them.
They studied the shadow, or cloud, or whatever it was, three more times.
"The body shape is typical of a tiger's," Joseph concluded. "I saw several of them at the London Zoo, including a male Siberian that weighed nearly seven hundred pounds."
"Phylogenetically lions and tigers are closely related," Tom said.
"But even the Bengal tiger is larger than the largest lion I have ever seen. The image captured by the camera appears to be moving purposefully, not randomly." Tom nodded. "If it is the image of a tiger, or the ghost of one, the head, what we were able to see of it, is not right."
"Tiger's body, the head of a hyena," Eden said. That got their full attention. "I know, it's a physical impossibility. So are two-headed calves, but they exist. And I don't think you've forgotten Moby Bay, have you, Tom? They were real, and this thing is real too, although it wasn't actually there this morning. It was like a dark spoor in the air. Karloff got wind of it and charged. If Bertie hadn't been in the combi with the guys, it would be junk now and we'd be burying everybody tomorrow."
"So it wasn't just a figment in Karloff's addled old brain," Bertie said softly. "What d'you know?"
Etan was staring at Eden, which made her uncomfortable. She shrugged before he could start asking questions, turned, and walked out of the parlor.
Tom, Bertie, and Eden had a meeting an hour later in Eden's bungalow.
Eden explained everything her doppelganger had told her about the sacred staircase in Rome, without mention of the dpg.
Tom said, "So there was a guru in India, according to Pegeen; the evangelist in Atlanta last week; and now you think the Pope is a likely target for... whatever it is."
"Yes."
Bertie said, "I'm bothered by the whatever-it-is, now that it's shown up here." She was looking at Eden, smiling, but her smile seemed cool to Eden.
"Hold on," Tom said. "We haven't seen much of anything yet. An image, a shadow."
"But Eden has seen it—I mean, enough of it—to believe that it's real."
"Yes," Eden said, and compressed her lips, shoulders tensing. It was Bertie who looked away first.
"You know I love you," Bertie said. "But—"
"You think I'm inventing—it? Bringing it to life? Oh, God, why would I do such a thing?"
Torn was uneasy. "Let us not jump to conclusions, here."
Looking for ticks, Bertie parted the short hairs behind the ears of Fernando, the hulking mixed-breed dog that lay between her sandaled feet.
"Eden. You went through so bloody much in so short a time. When we first saw you, in Moby Bay among those shape-shifters, you were so deep in shock I thought you were a goner."
"And you don't believe I've fully recovered from that experience, is that what you mean? I'm hallucinating? Well, I didn't hallucinate that fucking dead evangelist, Bertie! And I've always trusted the messages of my dreams. Otherwise that city in Tennessee would be a glass-lined crypt."
"I haven't said you ought not to trust them," Bertie replied. "But your powers have no checks or balances yet; you can blow wild sometimes, like an uncapped oil well."
"But Pegeen saw what I saw the other morning, on the face of Jimmy Nixon there on the tube—and it was a tiger with the head of—"
"We both know Pegeen is highly suggestible. Give me five minutes and I'll have her convinced she saw Santa Claus on the roof with the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"This is not very fair of you," Eden said bitterly, turning from Bertie. There was a catch in her voice; her eyes shimmered by firelight. "Torn, don't you want to listen to me? I know the Holy Father is in danger. We have to do something."
Silence in the sitting room of the bungalow. The fire on the hearth popped and crackled. Fernando broke wind vigorously as he got to his feet. Bertie made a face and fluttered a hand. Outside. The dog padded away.
"Yes. I agree something should be done." Tom was looking at Bertie.
Bertie got up and put her arms around Eden, who for the moment was unyielding but offered a bruised smile, taking in Bertie's warmth.
"I've always liked Rome in the fall," Bertie said.
Eden was in bed at half past midnight but not asleep, although the genets that lived in one of the fig trees not far from her bedroom usually lulled her with their nocturnal rap, huffing sounds like fat men jogging up a steep hill. Voices from the nightly chorus, underscored by the ceaseless met
allic peeping of tree frogs and the tympany of bull toads. She'd also been hearing the alarm calls of a baboon troop half a mile or more away; that almost always meant a leopard in the neighborhood, their most feared adversary.
Tom Sherard knocked on her bedroom door, identifying himself.
Eden got out of bed, stripping off the comfortable flannel shirt that hung to her knees. Shivering—the temperature outside had dropped into the high forties—she pulled on a pair of green coveralls: snap snap and she opened the thick carved door to him. Raking a hand through her hair where it had flattened on the pillow.
Tom had a glass in one hand, two ounces of whiskey and a melting ice cube, but she knew it wasn't his first. Probably he'd camped out on the veranda with only a couple of dogs and Uncle Norm for company, his boots up, as sleepless as Eden, eyes narrowed but alert in flush moonlight, hunter, caretaker, knowing the night of his birthplace but not the strangeness in his heart. So it was to be tonight, she thought, looking solemnly into his gray eyes for confirmation, nipples sensitive against the fabric of her coveralls. She had known how to touch him after all. Reach him. Then a twinge that snaked into a livid cramp reminded her that she was seeping blood. Not this night. When he reached into a pocket of his safari jacket and rather awkwardly handed her a couple of folded pages his computer had printed out, Eden realized with a different twinge that she had misread him. She smiled in a self-bemused way.
"What's this, Tom?"
"I know it's late, but I thought you'd want to—E-mail, from Betts. It was received by my office at the Bellaver Foundation in Geneva earlier tonight, and they passed it on to me according to our arrangement."
He turned from the doorway but she motioned for him to stay.
"It's all right. Don't go, please. I'd like some company."
While he poked at the embers of the fire in the sitting room and added logs, Eden pulled up a chair and turned on a lamp with a tasseled shade. She read eagerly, gasped, stopped, looked up.
"Tom!"
"What's wrong?"
"Betts. She's not coming. She can't come! Omigod!"
For a quarter of a minute Eden stared at the pages in her hand, breathing through her mouth. Then her eyes closed; tears that were squeezed from the corners of her eyes ran down her face. She sat there heaving from sobs.
Tom came to Eden and gently pried the E-mail pages from her cold hand.
"May I read this?"
"Y-yes."
Eden slumped back in the chair, scrunching against the black-fringed zebra hide. An animal reaction, emphasized by a long wail of despair.
He tilted the lampshade, holding the pages close to the round globe. He had left his reading glasses in his small study next to his bedroom, which had been his parents' bedroom. But with enough light he could make out Betts Waring's words. Eden knotted up in the chair, going, "Oh shit. Oh shit."
My darling
this is going to be a rough one I
know because you have no warning.
Even after it happened I still wanted
to come there to Kenya & when the time
was ripe brag it up (assuming there can
ever bee ripe time for the noose none
of us ever want to wear?) but my flying
to anyplace now is Im sure out of the
ballpark. Youll understand why.
My flight from SFO to London was delay
by a bad storm that bombard the
airpoor a cup of horse, so I had rumcoke
in the first class lunge to wait out
with a very nice people from Santa
Rose, who were on their way to Rome
to see the Pope. (Im writing this
slow but still probably doing some
whistles wrong but cant tell which ones
youll understand why)
You know how my little strokes used
to happen, because once you were with
me & I have to pool over ask you to
drive which you didnt have your license
yet? I got this warm feeling the side
of my neck and vision was fuzzy for a,
copper mints. But weenie they check
me at the Med that time all the
dynasty whatzits didnt pick, up
anything wrong with me.
That was yours ago but only two little,
episodes after the first one & I
never told Riley told you. Over in
a few mints no harm, done & my
reaction of course was light up
another Pall Mall, self-dialysis &
put it all out of my mind.
But the one that hit me in the San
Fran airpoor wasnt so easy to dismiss.
I know I blacked out but not how long.
And my left urn was numb from elbow
down. Funny feeling, looking & there's
my hand like ded bird in my lap. I
felt weak and had to go to the garden.
Heaved and heaved but didnt feel much
better. Looked in the mirror while
I swallowed my face but already knew
it was deep caca. The pupil of my
right eye bigger than the short one.
Left everything so I guess my kit
is in London now but Im in a big
hurry thinking Im going to die &
took a taxi to Pal Alto. Where
they have the best special lists
at Stanford. They did all the tests
and I guess its pervious by now the
rest of my life is a blank table.
Weenie we look at the skull pix I
know its waste of time to go in
there dig & dig because this squat
little monster has more urns than a
Hondo diety, thats all she rot &
fuckit babe, Four weeks is about
what Im left so pleese I need you to
come here where I am while I can
still make senz and will know who
you arse.
I didnt want to go home to an empty
well. Getting tired now must finish.
Im staying with dear old friend from
college almost married him but those
things happen & anyway he has been so
kind to me. His name is Edmund Ruddy
& will pick you up at San Fro weenie
you rive then its just one oar to the
marbles where Edmund pizza greek. I
miss you so bad pleese mall me right
away you are coming
bye now dear one
"What a terrible thing to happen!" Eden shouted. "Can't the Warings get a break anymore? Tom, what am I going to do?"
"You have to go to her. The Gulfstream can be gassed and ready by dawn. It's a sixteen-hour hop, I'd hazard, to San Francisco, so Reggie will need to round up a full second crew. I'll ring him while you pack; then I'll fly you to Kenyatta Airport."
"But—we were going to Rome tomorrow! The Holy Father—"
"Bertie and I will go. First I need to get in touch with your grandmother, ask her to set up an appointment through the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. It was going to be a tough sell even with you along, but we'll make our pitch and trust they won't think we're raving mad."
"I'm sorry—" Tears again.
"Betts is your priority," he said kindly. "We'll somehow convince Leoncaro to keep a low profile for a few weeks. Then we'll join you in California."
"You will? Oh, God, Tom, you don't know how grateful—"
"We're a team, Eden. We back each other up. That's how it will always be."
She flew out of the chair and pressed her wet face against his chest, aware of his heart, the closeness of his bones, but still miles from the moment she had opened the bedroom door to him, thinking in her drowse that he had come to make love to her. A girlish thing, a lonely infatuation.
"God bless," she whispered.
"Be strong."
<
br /> She felt the hard point of his chin against the crown of her head.
Bertie was almost always a sound sleeper, but even in those depths she heard the big turbine of the Augusta helicopter winding up for flight. She popped up out of a dream like a glistening fish from deep water. Left her room by way of the interior courtyard that separated the new octagonal wing with its conical copper roof from the original house. Flanked by two silent dogs like dark escorts she walked through the house out onto the moon-blazoned veranda.
She saw Eden, fifty yards from the house, slip beneath the moving blades on the concrete pad and climb into the helicopter while Tom raised the RPMs and turned on the fuselage running lights. Eden had gear with her, a mid-size duffel slung across her back.
Almost as soon as the door closed behind her Tom lifted off, turning first toward the lake and then southeast, a heading that would take them to Nairobi. For what purpose Bertie didn't know.
She heard a cabinet clock inside chime twice.
When the roar of the helicopter became too faint to hear against the cold wind blowing down the Rift Valley, Bertie returned to her bedroom and lay down, but with her knees up and her hands behind her head, looking up through the mosquito netting at the moonlight on motionless fan blades. Seeing the two of them in the helicopter with some rendezvous in mind, and her normally contented expression turned glum. After a while she got up again with no more thought of sleep, put on a jogging suit and sandals, and crossed the wide lawn to Eden's bungalow. In the sitting room there was still faint warmth from the redeye fire. Also a glass of watered whiskey that Tom (she thought) might have left there.
She went into the bedroom but couldn't tell anything except that the bed had been slept in and then Eden had packed in a hurry, leaving cabinet doors open and drawers pulled out.
Bertie felt bad for herself, with no real evidence to explain the feeling. It was just something that had been coming on for a month or so.
Tom and Eden, Eden and Tom.
When Bertie went outside again she heard faint but frenzied human cries that seemed to be coming from the campsite of the climatologists and earth scientists down at the lake.