by Will Adams
‘Not exactly, no,’ she said, sitting opposite. ‘This is where I was brought up. My father and my sister…’ She stopped short, surprised by a pang of emotion.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. Outside, the rain was easing. It would be daybreak in a few hours; she should get some sleep. Yet, more than anything, she felt the need to talk. ‘It’s my father and my sister,’ she told him. ‘They’ve gone missing.’
SEVENTEEN
I
Though she’d been up late, Rebecca woke early and rose at once, brisk with purpose. Her luggage was at Pierre’s, she had no toiletries, so she swilled and spat out some drinking water, threw on yesterday’s clothes, then looked briefly in on her father’s office. Daniel was still sleeping. He’d thrown off his sheet during the night, was naked except for a pair of cheap green cotton boxers. Cotton boxers: underwear of kings! Morning sunlight glistened on the thin fuzz of his navel and chest valley. His arm had fallen off the bed and his knuckles were resting on the floor. She suffered an odd kind of embarrassment then, recalling how she’d poured her heart out to him last night, sharing confidences about her childhood here that she’d never before told anyone-and him a journalist! She’d known even at the time that it was rash, yet once she’d started she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Besides, there was something about him that she’d trusted then and trusted still. And, for all that she’d told him he’d have to leave today, she found herself rather hoping that he’d stay.
It was cool out. She took a familiar track into the spiny forest, walking with her arms folded across her belly until exertion warmed her. The narrow path was badly waterlogged in places. Her shoes kept plugging and popping, her feet became drenched and cold. But she didn’t turn back. She’d put this off for over a decade already. It wouldn’t wait any longer.
Moisture made everything sparkle. Birds sang; grasshoppers fizzed from her advance. Termite mounds were rusted with rain. A huge web glittered like stretched silver thread above her head. Last night’s deluge had been an aberration. This region was parched most of the year. The peculiar gyre of the Indian Ocean and Madagascar’s mountainous spine kept her east coast saturated but her west coast dry. Plants had to gather enough water during the rare rains to last them through the droughts. The flowers and trees therefore armoured themselves with needles to protect this precious liquid. Spiders and chameleons too. Madagascar’s tenrec and the hedgehog were a textbook example of convergent evol ution, little balls of spines. Like the hedgehog, the tenrec was a hibernator, fattening itself during rains, using torpor to survive the dry season. It was a common strategy on this coast. The mouse lemur, the world’s smallest primate, could plunge its body temperature to just seven degrees above freezing. As a child, Rebecca had had a knack for finding these tiny, wide-eyed prosimians in their snug tree-holes. When you cradled them in your palm, their whole bodies would pulse extravagantly with terror. They were wise to be afraid, for she’d found their bones in the droppings of raptors, snakes, owls and fossa, but they’d never had anything to fear from her. She’d always loved lemurs, not least because so many of the species were fiercely matriarchal. They knew how gender relationships should be. Female ring-tailed lemurs had first pick of food and space, they cuffed their men around with impunity.
Only after leaving Eden did Rebecca realise what a privileged childhood she’d had. Her contemporaries at Oxford University had drawn their knowledge of nature from books rather than from the world. Slightly to her consternation, they’d envied Rebecca her upbringing. Madagascar was the haj for biologists. Eighty-eight million years ago, the island had finally separated from the supercontinent of Gondwana, where it had lain sandwiched between Africa, India and Australia. Since then, its fauna and flora had evolved independently. And Madagascar’s diverse ecosystems of volcanic highlands, reefs, rain forest, spiny forest and savannah meant not only an extraordinary proportion of endemics, but astonishing variety.
She climbed a gentle hill. The thalidomide-limbed trunk of a baobab towered like an ancient Egyptian pylon at the entrance to an old, familiar glade. Rebecca’s mother had loved it up here, for the solitude and for the view it offered out over the lagoon. She’d come here all the time until she’d fallen too sick, and then she’d made Adam promise to bury her here. He’d kept his word. Her low stone tomb stood at the heart of the glade. Its white walls were roughly plastered; run your palm across it, it would scrape your skin. A flight of six steps led down to a sealed doorway. A faded colour photograph of Yvette as a young woman was embedded in the wall to the left of the doorway, protected by dulled glass. She’d been Merina, with dark, Polynesian looks and a dazzling smile which she’d somehow kept until the end, like the grin of the Cheshire cat. Beyond the door, stone slabs lay either side of a narrow aisle. On the left-hand slab lay her mortal remains, wrapped in rich red cloth. The right-hand slab was empty, waiting for Adam. He’d known even then he’d never remarry. He’d teased Yvette that at last he’d get to choose which side he slept; but he’d given her the left in death as in life, as she’d known he would. He’d deferred to her in everything that mattered. It had been his pleasure.
A brick oven against the left wall of the tomb was filled with puddled grey ash and the charred remnants of photographs and a cassette tape. Yvette had made Adam vow to keep her informed about her family, at least once each year, on the anniversary of her death. He’d record one of these cassettes to tell her what everyone had been up to, adding photographs of Eden, the boat, the reefs and the villagers, then he’d make a great pyre, dousing it with fuel and immolating it. Old friends visiting from England had teased Adam for this, because he’d once been scornful of religion. But he’d become a Catholic just to please her; and he’d taken it seriously too.
After Madagascar’s hospitals had given up on Yvette, she’d refused to let Adam fly her out to a European hospital. She was a Malagasy; this was her home. For the most part, she’d faced her death with courage. Adam, too. Rebecca had found their candour and good humour unbearable, worse even than their rare shouting matches. They’d read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s On Death and Dying to each other, laughing whenever they recognised aspects of their own behaviour, as though it were a book of jokes. Rebecca had been desperate for Yvette to fight her disease, if not to beat it then at least to hold the line. Her confused welter of adolescent emotion had manifested itself in sulks and tempers. She’d been angry at Adam for letting Yvette die, at their useless doctors, at the cancer cells overrunning Yvette’s body, at the birds that squawked so loudly to deny her rest, at the sun for its dry ferocity, the wind for its noise, the calm for denying her a cooling breeze. All of creation had seemed a conspiracy.
In her final months, Yvette had suffered occasional deep bouts of depression. In part agitated by Rebecca’s own foul moods, she’d berated herself as a terrible mother for having spent too much time with the local Malagasy children, not enough with her own. Rebecca’s efforts to reassure her had rung so hollow that they’d only made Yvette gloomier. Their time together had become desperately uncomfortable. Rebecca had started avoiding her altogether.
One day, Adam had sent her off for supplies. On her return, he’d been waiting for her at the lodge’s front door, a hushing finger to his lips. She’d feared terrible news. She’d feared the end. But Adam had led her into reception, out of earshot of Yvette’s cabin, and closed the door. He’d motioned her to a chair, then told her the brutal truth about leukaemia: that when it progressed this far, it almost always proved fatal. People facing death-and those who loved them-tended to pass through certain emotional states as they came to terms with this; that these were well known and natural, and included denial, isolation, anger, bargaining and depression. Rebecca could see for herself that Yvette had reached this latter stage. Depression often afflicted people who feared they’d wasted their lives. ‘Let’s face it,’ Adam had told Rebecca bluntly. ‘When you isolate yourself from the world, as we’ve done here, you make that
choice for your own benefit, not for your children’s. I know Yvette hasn’t been as good a mother to you as she might have been, but while she’s feeling this dispirited, I need for you to pretend-’
This had been too much. ‘How dare you!’ she’d screamed, flailing at him. ‘How dare you! She’s the best mother ever! She’s done everything for us! Everything! You don’t deserve her! You never deserved her! She’s too good for you! You’re helping her to die!’ This last accusation had been like a splinter in her soul. Once it had come out, she hadn’t been able to speak any more, overwhelmed by sobs, trembling with emotion. Adam had taken her by the wrist and dragged her into his office. Yvette had been propped up by pillows in a camp-bed, her wheelchair parked alongside. There’d been a moment’s silence. Yvette had pulled an anguished face and stretched wide her arms. Rebecca’s heart had twisted. She’d run helplessly across the room and flung herself into her mother’s embrace.
Yvette’s health had improved after that. She’d become comfortable. Rebecca had even allowed herself hope. But it had been a mirage. In Kenya, recently, she’d watched an elderly antelope brought down by lions. Once its fight was lost, it had lifted its head and watched its own evisceration with the same acceptant, haunting silence as Yvette had displayed in those final weeks. Death shouldn’t be like this, Rebecca had thought. Death was the worst thing in the world and needed to be fought, even when hope was gone. But Yvette had already passed beyond reclaim. She’d become indifferent to the world. Too late, Rebecca realised that Adam had tricked her into their reconciliation so that Yvette could achieve peace with herself, and so die.
Flower-beds dug around the tomb had been planted with orchids. Yvette’s favourites, from her highland home. They needed copious and regular water to survive in this arid climate. Rebecca remembered ruefully her ostentatious grief during Yvette’s funeral, her tears and wailing, her rejection of comfort, company, food and drink. People will see my grief and know how deeply I’ve been hurt, she’d thought. They’ll compare me with my father and find him wanting. But here, in this lovingly tended tomb, was irrefutable proof that Adam had felt true, deep and lasting love; a memorial to her mother, a place she hadn’t visited in a decade.
Only one person had been found wanting, and it was her.
II
Knox woke with a start to discover that the sun was up and the day was growing warm. As he rose to wash and dress, he realised he still had his medical pendant on. Miles insisted on the damned thing whenever he was on an overseas job, but it was inscribed with the MGS logo and would blow his story about being a freelance journalist, so he took it off and packed it away, then brewed coffee on the gas cooker and wondered what to do.
A small stack of promotional leaflets for the nearby guest cabins lay on the reception counter. He took one outside to read while he drank his coffee: French and English text wrapped around touristic photographs: sunbathers glistening with oil on the white sand; angel fish in crystal-clear water; a bearded man Knox took to be the proprietor bouncing across the waves in an inflatable Zodiac; a sailboat silhouetted against a nectarine sunset. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, saw Rebecca arriving from the spiny forest, raised his cup in greeting. ‘Coffee?’ he asked.
‘Love some,’ she nodded.
He refilled his own mug while he was at it, took them both back out, sat down beside her on the veranda bench. She held her cup beneath her nose, breathed in deep, then looked sideways at him. ‘Doesn’t count as a proper holiday if you have to shave, huh?’
‘Something like that,’ he smiled. The sky was bright, mist rising from residual puddles. Grey-headed lovebirds frolicked and chased in the surrounding trees. A radiated tortoise crept slowly along the line of shade, making the most of the morning cool to feed. ‘Tame buggers, aren’t they?’ he said.
‘This is their sanctuary. No one hunts them here.’
‘People hunt them?’
‘Sure. For food. And for the pet trade.’
‘So what’ll happen to them now?’ he asked. Only once the question was out did he realise its unfortunate implication. He winced and held up a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘It’s okay,’ she assured him. ‘I need to think about it.’ She looked around, as though seeing it through different eyes. ‘I’ll certainly keep it going,’ she told him. ‘My father and Emilia would want that. But I’m not coming back. My life’s in England now.’
Knox nodded. ‘It should be easy enough to find someone to run a place like this.’
‘Harder than you might think. Managing a nature reserve is bloody hard work. People dream about places like this, but it’s not all sunshine and reefs.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Her words reminded him of the promotional leaflet, however. He passed it to her.
‘Oh.’ Her face fell. ‘So you’re moving on, then?’
‘Not unless you still want me to.’ He pointed to the picture of the sailboat. ‘I was just wondering, is this the boat you were telling me about last night? Your father’s, I mean. The one you want to collect from Tulear.’
She glanced down at it. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’
‘A flat-bottomed sloop,’ he told her. ‘Not quick, but a piece of piss to handle. And I’d need someone who knows the reefs, of course. Or the passes between them, at least.’
She looked up at him in surprise. ‘You can sail?’
‘Sure,’ he told her. ‘I’d imagined it was bigger. But something like that, no problem.’
Rebecca nodded slowly. ‘I know the reefs,’ she said. ‘It’s been a while, but I don’t suppose they’ve moved.’
III
Davit was sitting on his porch watching half-heartedly for a pirogue with a Western Union logo on its sail when Claudia came around the corner of his cabin. ‘Hey!’ he grinned. ‘There you are.’
‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘Here I am.’
‘Any luck?’
‘Sure.’ She climbed up on to his porch, sat upon the balustrade and swung her legs. ‘I ask my friends. They say this pirogue belongs to Thierry and Alphonse. They say they take two foreigners with them, a man to Eden, a woman on to Tulear.’
‘Eden?’ asked Davit.
‘You have a map?’
Boris had hired himself a motorbike after breakfast, had headed off on some mysterious errand; but he’d left his guidebook on his porch. Davit fetched it now, opened it up to a regional map as he returned. Claudia came to stand beside him when he sat back down, leaning against his thigh. Braids spilled like a bead curtain over her face as she looked down. She pointed away to their south. ‘This is my orphanage I was telling you about,’ she said.
‘And Eden?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Her finger moved with deliberate slowness, stretching out the moment. ‘This is Eden here.’ Her leg felt gloriously warm against his own. He glanced up at her. She scooped her braids back behind her head with her left hand. ‘You like a massage, maybe?’ she said.
‘You give massages?’ he asked doubtfully.
‘Yes. I give massages.’
He glanced around. There was still no sign of Boris, and with Knox in this Eden place, there seemed little point watching out for him. Besides, what harm could a massage do? ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That would be great.’
‘I get my oil.’
He went inside, stripped down to his shorts, lay facedown upon the bed. Claudia came back in, took hold of the door. ‘Open or closed?’ she asked.
‘Open,’ he said.
She knelt beside him and set to work on his neck and shoulders. Her fingers were weak compared to the sports massages of his rugby-playing days, but it was pleasant all the same. She tapped his shoulder; he turned on to his back. The mosquito net glowed around them in the halflight, lending a certain medieval grandeur to the moment. She massaged his chest and arms and thighs, then sat herself at the far end of the bed, took his foot and set it against her chest, the better to work his ankle. He could feel the warmth and softness of her breast aga
inst his sole. His foot tugged down her top a little way, revealing a glimpse of nipple. She gave him a look of mock reproach and adjusted herself, then ran her thumbs hard down his metatarsals, as though trying to empty a tube of its toothpaste. ‘Is nice, yes?’ she murmured.
‘Very nice,’ he agreed.
She slid her hands up past his knee to his thigh. She did it again, and then a third time, going a little further on each occasion. He felt that strange numbness of mind setting in, the kind that made men forget about things like shame and consequences until it was too late. ‘How old are you?’ he asked; and his voice sounded like it was coming from far away.
‘Twenty-three,’ she told him. ‘You want to see my card?’
‘No,’ he said.
She nodded and set down his leg, then went to close and bolt the door. Then she walked back towards him, stripping as she came.
EIGHTEEN
I
Rebecca was ransacking her father’s desk for insurance documents when Zanahary arrived in the Mitsubishi, her belongings in the back. They brought everything indoors, packed overnight bags for themselves, locked up and set off south for Tulear. She took the wheel herself, Daniel alongside her and Zanahary on the flatbed behind, where he could smoke all he wanted. ‘That stuff I told you last night,’ she said, once they were on their way. ‘It was in confidence, yes? You won’t write some dreadful feature on me?’
‘Of course not,’ Daniel assured her.
‘My father’s very highly respected. I’d never forgive myself if that got out.’
‘I already gave you my word,’ he said. He selected a cassette tape, turned the volume down low. ‘I’ll tell you something, though: if anyone had treated me like that, I wouldn’t be so worried for their reputation.’