The Beautiful Mother

by Scholes, Katherine

  The table shook as Julia used both hands to lever herself to her feet. She half stumbled towards Ian. Essie stepped back, leaving space for son and mother to come together. But Julia pushed past Ian, heading for the open front of the hut.

  She walked across to stand at the edge of the clearing, facing the horizon. In the late light the volcano was a mauve pyramid topped with cloud. Julia’s arms rose up, reaching towards the foothills as if the gesture could bring her closer to the place where Robbie lay. Essie was reminded of a puppet whose movements were controlled by strings. If they were cut, the figure would fall in a heap on the ground.

  The sounds of the camp punctuated the quiet. A clatter of pans coming from Baraka’s kitchen. The strangled squawk of a chicken. The distant thud of Tommy butting his head against the gate of his pen.

  Essie looked at Ian. He was immobile, staring helplessly at his mother. Essie wondered if she should go across to her. But the next moment Julia was marching back into the hut.

  ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘Of course,’ Essie said. ‘I’ll take you there tomorrow. Simon and I built a cairn and drew a map, so we can find it straightaway.’

  ‘We have to go, now.’ Julia turned in the direction of the storeroom, where the shelves had been freshly stocked with spare torches, batteries and Tilley lanterns. ‘Come on.’

  ‘It’s too far,’ Essie said. ‘We can’t get there and back before dark. You have to pick your way over the rocks. Even with lamps, it would be impossible.’

  ‘Essie’s right,’ Ian said firmly. ‘We have to wait until tomorrow. We can leave before dawn and be on the mountain at first light.’

  Julia shifted her gaze from Essie to her son. A struggle showed on her face, but then her shoulders slumped as reasoning found its grip. She made her way back to her place at the work table.

  Ian followed her example. After putting down the sandshoe he collapsed into his chair, covering his eyes with his hand.

  Diana leaned over, studying the object. Essie could see her piecing clues together. Before any questions could be asked, Essie made a point of looking away. She didn’t want to be the one to tell Robbie’s story.

  Stillness settled over the scene. There were small meaningless movements: Diana lighting a cigarette – the scrape of a match, the flare of the flame; Ian shifting his weight in his chair, creaking canvas; Julia’s foot tapping tensely against the leg of the table.

  Essie went to stand outside the front of the hut, resting her hand on one of the support posts. She stared into the distance, the air hazy with dust. Suddenly, without warning, she had a flashback to the instant when she’d first glimpsed Robbie’s body. Nausea washed over her as she saw the childish lips, the closed eyes, the partially dissolved cheek baring a section of jaw. It was such a brutal combination of preservation and decay. She imagined the haunting image somehow escaping from her head, flitting across the hut like a bird, settling on Julia’s shoulder, entering her thoughts.

  Struggling to banish the memory, Essie focused on the sound of her breath, moving in and out of her lungs. Slowly the pictures of Robbie faded away. Inexplicably, images of Mara rose up in their place. With them came a shiver of panic. Essie knew where the baby was – safe in Simon’s care. Yet she found herself murmuring her excuses, hurrying away. She needed to bury her face against the soft smooth skin. Hear the gurgling laugh. Press her ear to the warmth of the baby’s chest, and listen to the strong, steady beat of her heart.

  Ian was pacing the tent restlessly, moving back and forth between the bed and Essie’s makeshift dressing table.

  ‘Why wouldn’t Stein share what he’d found with the world?’ he asked. ‘It makes no sense.’ He kept looking at his watch as if it would help the night go faster.

  Essie was sitting on the edge of the mattress, Mara asleep in her lap. Ian’s nervous energy was like a cloud filling the air. He was thinking out loud, using words to keep himself calm. She wondered if he was focusing on Stein to avoid thinking about Robbie, and his mother. Julia was in her tent. Diana had produced a sedative from her purse and given her a double dose.

  ‘I guess he was on the same tack as Kohl-Larsen,’ Ian added. ‘So he didn’t want to find evidence of erectus in Africa.’

  Essie didn’t respond straightaway. Until recently, she’d have drawn the same conclusion. Kohl-Larsen was an anthropologist who’d carried out research expeditions in Olduvai Gorge back in the 1930s, around the time the Leakeys first worked there. He had close ties with the Nazi party, sharing the vision of an Aryan master race. The idea of everybody coming from one source – and Africa, at that – didn’t exactly fit with Hitler’s picture of the world. Because Stein and Kohl-Larsen were both German, people tended to assume they had some similar ideas. Stein’s fascination with the Maasai wasn’t inconsistent with this picture – the Nazis funded research into people they termed ‘primitive’; they wanted to prove how different they were to themselves. But Essie now had new information about their missionary neighbour – which just showed how wrong it could be to lump people together based purely on where they were born.

  ‘It might not have been anything to do with that,’ she said carefully.

  Ian paused in his pacing. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Carl Bergmann knows more about Stein than we do.’

  At the mention of the photographer, Ian’s eyes narrowed – but he wasn’t ready to change the topic. ‘How come?’

  ‘He went to the Mission archives in Berlin to do some research, once he knew he was going to be living in the old house. He noticed Stein had stopped publishing long before he died. The explanation of the missionaries was that he’d gone mad. They thought he’d spent too much time living alone with the Africans.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with keeping his discovery a secret?’

  ‘The cave is in the foothills of Ol Doinyo Lengai,’ Essie explained. ‘Stein might have been protective of the Maasai – he got close to them, apparently. Maybe he even took on some of their ideas. They don’t believe people should go onto the mountain.’

  Ian frowned impatiently. Before he had a chance to say more, Essie kept going. ‘Simon was very uneasy about us being in that cave. He couldn’t wait to get back outside. He thinks the dead bodies, lying so close to the home of Lengai, shouldn’t be disturbed.’

  ‘He’s a Hadza. They don’t believe in Lengai – or any other god, for that matter.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that simple,’ Essie said. She wondered what Ian would think if he’d seen the man adjusting the position of Robbie’s head, and heard him talking about the three mountains that held special meaning to his people. ‘Simon definitely believes in something. But also, he believes in their belief – the Maasai, I mean.’

  Ian threw her a look of frustration. ‘But what we’re talking about here is of huge significance. Doesn’t he understand that?’

  ‘Yes, he does. But he’s still worried about what we’re going to do in there. If the place will be respected.’ After they’d left the cave, there had been a long discussion between her and Simon about the issues that would arise from their discovery. It had lasted all the way back down the hillside to where the Land Rover was parked.

  Ian waved one hand. ‘We can’t give in to ideas like that. It would be ridiculous. If Simon doesn’t want to be involved, then he can get a job somewhere else.’

  Essie felt a rush of defensive anger. ‘Without him, nothing would have been found. He feels responsible.’

  ‘Well, that’s too bad . . . He’ll just have to get over it.’

  Essie looked at her husband with incomprehension. He’d been born in this country, like his father before him. Normally, Ian was sensitive to traditional culture – even while usually managing to get his own way. He was critical of Europeans who showed disrespect. Essie had to remind herself that he might not be in a stable frame of mind after the news about his brother.

  ‘Look, we don’t have to deal with all this now,’ she said. ‘You’
ve only just heard about Robbie . . .’

  Ian spun around to her. ‘I don’t care about him.’ His harsh tone made Rudie’s ears lift. ‘I’m glad we know what happened. Now we can finally forget about him.’

  Essie eyed him in shock. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Don’t you think I’ve had enough? For God’s sake, he’s plagued me my whole life. It’s like he never grew up. He’s been there all the time, trailing behind me like a bloody shadow. Because he’s dead, he’s perfect.’

  The outburst over, Ian bent his head. A few moments passed, then Essie risked speaking again. ‘What will happen with his body?’

  ‘It will be removed, of course.’ Ian answered promptly, as if his thoughts had already been formed. ‘But first we have to document the context of the erectus. We’ll need to bring in an independent observer – someone from England – just to make sure no one questions anything. So that’ll take some time, unfortunately.’

  ‘It might be hard for Julia – leaving him there. Now that he’s been found.’

  Ian let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Look, this goes way beyond what might please Julia or Simon or the Maasai – or bloody Lengai, for that matter.’

  Essie threw a glance towards the kitchen hut, as if Baraka might be able to overhear this blasphemy. She had to struggle to remain calm. ‘With the erectus – we have to think of the best approach. We could do an in situ investigation.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Ian said. ‘You said the cave’s at the bottom of the volcano. That skeleton needs to come out as soon as possible. It’s just amazing the place has never been destroyed by an earthquake or buried in a lava flow.’

  ‘But that’s the point!’ Essie argued. ‘What’s the latest date we have for erectus – five hundred thousand years? The bones have been there at least as long as that – probably more like a million, or a million-and-a-half. Why should anything change, just because we know that it’s there?’

  Ian was silent – unable to refute her logic.

  Essie continued. ‘I don’t think we can afford to upset the Maasai. And the Hadza, for that matter.’

  ‘Ah, Essie Lawrence. Defender of the Hadza . . .’ Ian smiled grimly. ‘Perhaps you’ve been spending too much time with the natives, too. You’d make a good pair with Stein. He’d probably have approved of . . . this.’ He gestured at Mara.

  Essie recoiled from his words and his tone. She wanted to object, but knew there was no point. Instead she looked down at Mara, resting in her lap. The baby’s lips puckered as if she was drinking milk in her dreams. Ian would not have noticed this, Essie knew. When he looked at Mara he saw only a creature that had caused problems – not a unique and precious little person. A new current of emotion flowed through Essie, displacing her anger towards Ian. She had to search for its name. Then it came to her. Pity. She felt sorry for her husband, that he could look at Mara and not be able to actually see her . . .

  ‘But I agree that you’ve got a point,’ Ian added. ‘If we get into a confrontation with the local people, the government will be involved for sure.’

  Essie watched a new line of thought taking hold. Ian was well aware that since Independence the unqualified support of authorities – the National Museum, the University of Dar es Salaam, the Department of Antiquities, the politicians – could not be taken for granted. It was true that the discovery of a Homo erectus was of immense significance to all those groups. Most likely they could be persuaded to side against the Maasai. But there was a risk they might not. The political scene was unstable; the outworking of the new spirit of nationalism could not be predicted.

  ‘So we need to take a careful approach,’ Ian said. ‘Limit the number of people involved. Consult the elders at the manyatta. That kind of thing . . .’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘In fact, we could make it a hallmark of our new practice. Let Magadi lead the way in dealing with a culturally sensitive location.’

  Essie breathed out with relief. Ian had taken on her suggestion as if it had been his own idea. The next morning she would be able to reassure Simon that his concerns were going to be addressed. As she relaxed, she noticed just how exhausted she was. Images of the day’s events trailed through her mind – the flamingos flying overhead in a vast pink stream; Carl saying goodbye to her and Mara; the discovery of the cave; the return to the camp with the news. She was aware of the expanse of the double bed spread out behind her, just waiting for her and Ian to lie down together. With a dull sense of regret she thought of how easy and natural that act would once have been. Now, so much had come between them. She recalled the snide comments Ian had just made about her and Stein, and the way he’d looked at Mara. He was under pressure, she knew, caught up in conflicting emotions. So was she. But perhaps it was still possible for them to turn things around: heal the rift that had formed. After all, something amazing had happened at Magadi, and they were both a part of it. Now that they’d agreed to find an appropriate way to work in the cave site, they should be able to bask in shared excitement and anticipation. Essie glanced over her shoulder at the bed. Throughout their marriage, good news and bad news alike had always been absorbed through the touching of skin on skin . . .

  She rose to her feet, ready to place Mara in her cot.

  ‘Good night, then,’ Ian said.

  Essie looked at him in confusion.

  ‘I thought you’d be sleeping in the nursery,’ Ian added. ‘It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.’

  As the meaning of his words sank in, Essie stood in silence. Numbness crept through her body. There was no current of emotion running between them, she realised. Nothing.

  Ian came over to her. Bending down, he kissed her quickly, his lips dry and stiff. Essie picked up the smell of tobacco and a faint trace of perfume.

  ‘Good night,’ Ian repeated.

  ‘Good night,’ Essie echoed.

  He sat down on the bed, watching while Essie gathered up the baby’s bottle and blanket and prepared to leave. He made no move to untie his shoelaces or take off his shirt. When Essie left the tent, he was still sitting there, fully dressed – as if the day was not yet done.

  EIGHTEEN

  The hiss of the pressure lantern blurred the thud of Essie’s boots as she picked her way along the tunnel. Burnt kerosene fumes wafted through the breathless air. She lifted the lamp up to widen the scope of the blue-white glow. A large spider clung to the wall, legs radiating from its body like the petals of some strange dark flower. Essie glanced only briefly at it, preoccupied with what lay ahead of her. Excitement and apprehension brewed inside her, an uneasy mix of emotion that deepened with each step she took.

  She could hear Ian right behind her, and the softer noises of the others further back. Diana was walking with Julia. A discussion had been held the night before about whether the visitor should join the excursion. The first viewing of Robbie’s body was a very private occasion, but as Ian had pointed out, the erectus was in the cave, too. Diana had made no attempt to hide her eagerness to be one of the first to see it. In the end it had been decided that she would come.

  Along with the women there were two members of the excavation team. They were long-serving employees – local Maasai – who’d been carefully chosen by Ian. He believed he could trust them to take a scientific view of the cave and its contents. During a hasty pre-dawn breakfast with Julia, Diana and Essie, he’d explained his strategy: by bringing in some Maasai at the start, and briefing them on each step, he hoped to control the way the discoveries would be viewed at the manyatta. The older of the men was called Koinet, ‘the tall one’. He was having to crouch over in the tunnel to avoid bumping his head. It was obvious how Legishon – ‘the polite one’ – had won his name, too: he was softly spoken and had a shy smile. So far, the pair only knew that a promising find had been made near the base of the volcano. Now, as they picked their way through the tunnel, the men were loaded up with extra lamps and torches. They also carried Ian’s camera bag and tripod, and the special measuring stick that was
marked off in sections of black and white to show scale.

  Simon was waiting outside with Mara. He’d helped guide the group to the cave entrance, but had declined to go any further. Instead he’d settled down with the baby next to the marker cairn. He’d spread out the baboon pelt and placed her on it. When Essie had left them, Mara was happily kicking her legs and reaching her hands towards the sky. Rudie was sitting nearby watching over her. It was a peaceful scene, bathed in the soft sunshine of early morning.

  Essie’s thoughts drifted back to them as she walked. She pictured Simon handing Mara a piece of dried bread to chew on, to help bring through another tooth. He’d keep a good eye on her, she knew, making sure she didn’t choke. Essie shook her head at herself. How could she be thinking of such matters, when she was involved in something so important? Suddenly she came to a halt. Ahead was the end of the tunnel – the opening into the cave. She turned around to Ian. His face, lit from below, had a ghostly appearance.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ she said.

  A look passed between them. Before long, the first paintings would come into view, but they’d agreed not to pause and examine them. They had to lead Julia straight to where Robbie lay. Julia could hardly contain her urgency. When they’d first sighted the cairn this morning she’d climbed frantically towards it, grazing her hands and knees as she scrambled over rocks. It was almost as if she imagined she was part of the search party that had set out decades ago in the hope of being able to find Robbie and bring him home alive. While they were preparing the lamps, prior to entering the cave, she’d paced in circles. She kept pushing back loose strands of her hair, which had not been tied back in its usual neat style. Her dishevelled appearance made her look half mad. How she was going to react to seeing the body was anyone’s guess. Julia would know what to expect of a mummified corpse. She’d once accompanied William on a trip to Egypt and must have seen plenty of specimens – removed from their sarcophagi and unwrapped – in the Cairo museum. The Peruvian mummies that Essie had mentioned earlier were closer to what she’d be confronted with today – the remains had been preserved naturally in the open air. Julia was familiar with them from National Geographic articles. But nothing could prepare a mother for the moment when she first saw her own dead child.