Sundowner Ubuntu

by Anthony Bidulka

  While the Australians were busy filling their stainless steel cups with wine and the Americans were taking photos of the sunset, I waited for Garry to return from a whiz in the bushes then sidled up next to him. “This is quite something,” I commented, meaning both the sunset and the spectacular spread. “Does this happen every night?”

  “The sundowner,” he replied through chomps of biltong (salt-cured meat akin to beef jerky). “The custom of having cocktails and a bite to eat during the sunset hour.” He shot me a sideways look and, with a rakish smile, added: “The only good thing the British gave to Africa.”

  I chuckled and looked at my watch: six-fifteen p.m. I spent the next few minutes asking safari-appropriate questions about the animals we’d seen and Garry’s experiences as a guide, all the while sipping the best gin and tonic this side of a gay Summer Is Here! party. I finally hit home with: “I think a friend of mine from Canada works here. His name is Matthew Moxley. Do you know him?”

  “Oh well,” Garry began, covering the darkening sky with searching eyes, “many people come to Mashatu. Can’t remember them all.”

  From what I’d seen so far, there couldn’t have been more than a couple dozen or so staff in the main camp. Add a handful more for the tent camp, and that didn’t make a ton of people to remember. Was Garry trying to stonewall me?

  “Really?” I said. “So you don’t know if there is someone named Matt or Matthew working here?”

  “Matt?” he said as if he’d only now heard the name for the first time.

  “Matt Moxley,” I repeated for good measure.

  “Oh no, no one here by that name, okay.”

  “Oh, that’s funny, I’m sure he said he worked at Mashatu. Does he work in the tent camp, do you think?”

  Garry was acting uneasy now, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and keeping his dark eyes anywhere but on mine. “Mmmmm, no, I don’t think so; no Matt at tent camp.” He raised his cup in the air as if to move my attention from himself to where Stuart was studying the scenery in the valley below us through a set of binoculars. “You see something, Stuart?” he called out.

  Nice diversion, Garry.

  “I think I see elephants,” Stuart responded in a loud whisper, as if the sound of his voice would frighten off the mammoth creatures.

  Garry—delighted to be away from me—joined Stuart and the others at the rim of the hilltop and glared into the dusky outcropping. “Yes, yes,” he said after a moment, pointing at a mass of grey in the distance. “There they are. Well-spotted, Stuart, well-spotted. Can everyone see them?”

  Garry had, quite skillfully I might add, put an end to my interrogation. For now.

  Upon returning to camp under a sky of black silk, we were given fifteen minutes to clean up and make our way to the cocktail lounge (fittingly called The Gin Trap) for more drinks before the eight-thirty dinner bell. Dusty and dirty, hot and sweaty, and wretchedly road weary after four hours of continuous bumping and humping of the safari vehicle, the seven of us made for a quiet parade down the rock-lined, gravel pathway that led to the guest quarters. Nestled in the tall reeds along the way, petite, flickering ground lanterns were the only lights available to guide us. We stumbled and tripped as we trudged along, peering through the thick darkness like moles, but eventually we found our way. The cloying air smelled of dying heat and sunburnt grass.

  My cabin was at the furthest end of camp, leaving me to walk the final several metres alone (and grateful for the solitude). Still a bit wary of my unfamiliar surroundings, I kept a sharp eye out for any movement in the wild flora, horror-movie spooky in the darkness, and took some comfort in the knowledge that the fence surrounding the property was sound protection against most wildlife.

  Except for monkeys.

  And crocodiles.

  And snakes.

  I hurried my pace until I reached my door, letting myself in with a sigh of relief, blissfully unaware that I had more to worry about inside my room than out.

  I didn’t have to turn on the lights to know something was not right. I stood still with my back against the door and let my eyes do the walking. Someone had been in my room. Maybe still was?

  My ears burned as I tried to listen for telltale sounds of an intruder. There could easily be someone in the closet area or one of the bathrooms, both of which were out of my line of sight, but my ears told me nothing. I noticed the curtains had been pulled across the windows and my bed had been turned down. Was that it? Was that all? Was it just the maid service that was setting my detective alarm bell to jangling? I didn’t think so, yet I couldn’t readily identify what it was that was bothering me.

  Then I knew.

  I lifted my nose in the air and stepped further into the room. Cheap cologne, so cheap I did not know its name, but I did know where I’d smelled it before. It was in another enclosed space, not so long ago: aboard Botswana Air.

  Jaegar had been in my room. I sniffed again. Probably not long ago. Well, Jaegar or the pilot, and I was pretty certain the pilot had turned tail and returned to civilization as soon as he’d dropped us off.

  Fortunately, I’d had no time to unpack, so it didn’t take me long to go through my things. Everything was there, perhaps not quite as I left it, but nothing was missing. Jaegar had done a good job of not disturbing anything. But what had he been looking for? And had he found it?

  It was a few minutes after eight-thirty by the time I managed a quick sponge bath (thank goodness I’d had the sense to buzz my hair very short before this trip, so it wasn’t much of a bother), slipped on a clean pair of cotton rugbys and a striped shirt, and made my way to The Gin Trap. Dinner had obviously not yet begun because the cocktail lounge was still full of mingling guests and camp staff. I descended the half-dozen or so steps that led down into the cozy space with its long bar, handful of small tables, and a cushioned perch overlooking the local (animal) watering hole, situated in a deep ravine below the bar. The lighting was low with an aura of candlelight, which, along with sun-kissed cheeks and free-flowing drinks, gave everyone a handsome glow. The non-stop chatter was an international mix of several languages punctuated by occasional roars and twitters of laughter and tinkles of glasses being raised in toast to the drinkers’ good fortune at having spotted an elusive cheetah or family of skittish giraffe. I bellied up to the bar and ordered a tall gin and tonic.

  “Sylvia Dinswoody, Scotland,” a woman to my right, settled on a cushioned stool, announced with precise diction as I waited for my drink.

  “Russell Quant, Canada,” I answered back with a raffish smile.

  Having done her bit, the woman looked at me with a baleful glare, obviously expecting me to take responsibility for driving the conversation from there on. She was tall, misshapen, maybe fifty, with an unsymmetrical face, uneven teeth, and a thick lower torso that made up the majority of her bulk.

  “Did you have a good day?” I asked, not quite familiar with safari talk. Over the last few hours, I’d come to realize that most of the guests at Mashatu were veteran safari-goers. Many had visited Mashatu previously and all had been on safari at least once before, leaving me the evident novice.

  “It was fine,” she commented dryly, slurring slightly. “We didn’t spot much. I might have stayed by the pool for all we saw. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. Who was your guide today?”

  “Garry,” I told her.

  She nodded and swallowed a healthy draft of scotch at the same time. “Garry is good; you’ll tend to see things with Garry. We had Joshua.” She made the motion of looking around for eavesdroppers, though I was sure she couldn’t have cared less if anyone overheard her (and probably’d have preferred it that way). “Not good, Joshua. Stay with Garry if you can. We had Garry our last two visits. Infinitely better, really.”

  Every detective loves a gossip, and I had the feeling I’d lucked onto a good one. My drink arrived, and I signalled to the barkeeper to pour the lady another couple fingers of scotch. He was about to pour, directly into her use
d glass, when she used a practiced, none-too-subtle finger wag to stop the pour and direct his attention to the back cabinet where sat a much more expensive bottle of Glenmorangie. The man looked at me, and I quickly nodded. Sylvia’s baboon-butt-red lips spread across her face in thanks, and she laid a conspiratorial hand on my forearm. “Can’t stand that other rubbish, can you?”

  Although I’d have bet my favourite wonderpants she’d been swilling the house brand before I’d come along, I nonetheless agreed vehemently. She smiled more. I smiled more. We understood one another.

  “So you’ve been to Mashatu many times?” I asked her.

  “Oh yes, getting to be a bore though, I must tell you,” she observed through a slurp of her refreshed drink. “And the food is ghastly. But it’s the elephants: I love the elephants, and there is no other place in Africa quite like Mashatu for elephants. They breed like rabbits here; not enough lion to control the population, thankfully.”

  “Are there any other guides you would recommend? I hear good things about Matt.”

  “Oh, my, yes, now there’s a good man, a good guide as well. Not bad to look at, either.”

  I felt the hairs on my neck do a dance, the gin rose to my cheeks, and the African warmth felt oh so pleasant on my skin. Finally! I had him. “Is he here tonight?” I asked lightly, trying not to betray my thrill. “I’d like to meet him.”

  She gave me a sharp look. “Not happy with Garry? He’s very good, you know.”

  “He is,” I quickly agreed. “But seeing as it’s my first time, I thought I’d try a variety of guides. Someone like Matt sounds good.”

  “Russell!” a voice bellowed from somewhere behind me. It was Stuart, one of my Bostonian safari companions from that afternoon. “Good to see you!” he called from half way across the room. “Gawd it’s crowded in here. We can’t seem to get to the bar. Can you order us two mart—” He stopped there as he looked away and conferred with his wife, Gladdy. “Okay, just two quick chard—” More conferring. “Okay, never mind. We’ll see you in there,” he hollered, nodding his head toward the closed bamboo-pole doors that separated the bar from the dining area.

  I waved and nodded without, hopefully, committing myself to sitting with them during dinner. As soon as the crowd swallowed them up I returned my attention to Sylvia Dinswoody.

  “As I say, you should stay with Garry,” she said to me as if there’d been no interruption. “Anyway, I’m afraid Matt is long gone.”

  My stomach churned as if suddenly full of sour gruel. “Gone?”

  “Haven’t seen him at all this year,” she told me, enunciating mightily with Scottish verve. “Maybe not last year either. Can’t quite recall the last time I saw him, actually.” As I stood there trying to take in this frustrating bit of information, Sylvia smirked, dipped her misshapen head, and swivelled on her stool to face a guy who’d just pulled up to the bar on her opposite side.

  “Sylvia Dinswoody, Scotland,” she announced to the man as she emptied her glass.

  I guess I was boring her, or she wanted a refill, or both.

  I excused myself as politely as I could—to the back of her head—and decided I had better fish to fry anyway: Jaegar had just arrived at The Gin Trap.

  But frying fish did not come easy that night.

  “Russell! Come join us for a drink!” one of the Australians called out to me from where the entire group of them were draped over one another—and a couple of other revellers I did not know—near the centre of the small lounge.

  How had they managed to get so sloshed in the few minutes since we’d gotten back from safari? Sarah, the youngest of the bunch, managed to stumble closer and pulled on my sleeve, causing me to spill my drink on the head of a petite Asian woman passing by who shrieked at the sensation of G&T flattening her hairdo. I shrieked at the sensation of good G&T going to waste. The Australians began to laugh uproariously. I apologized to the woman while a uniformed server used paper napkins to dry off her head.

  Once that was over, I scoured the crush of people, looking for Jaegar. Just then the bamboo dining room doors were thrown open, and the bar was filled with tribal drumming, beckoning us into the boma, the dining area with its roof open to the sky. In the centre of the lala-palm enclosed area, a blazing fire roared in a gigantic pit. The Gin Trap patrons poured into the enclosure like sand into the bottom half of an hourglass, and I flowed along with them. As I moved with the crowd, I continued my desperate search for Jaegar, but he was nowhere to be found. Slippery bugger.

  As promised, Garry knocked at my door at five-thirty the next morning and called my name until I called back with a groggy, “I’m up.” The morning drive was scheduled to begin at the ungodly time of six a.m. Do people actually consider this a vacation? I needed a rest after less than twenty-four hours.

  I rolled my lead-weight body out of bed even though my plans that day did not include a pre-sunrise safari. Garry was proving to be a dead-end source, as were my other safari vehicle companions, and since I’d confirmed last night that Matt had, at least at some point, worked at Mashatu, I needed to find a new source of information to move along my investigation. And I had an idea of where I’d find that source.

  I joined the other guests and guides in the breakfast area on the covered terrace adjoining The Gin Trap where half a dozen long tables were set up across from a small buffet. The pre-safari snack consisted of fruit, tea, instant coffee, and some hard, long biscuits that reminded me of biscotti. It was surprisingly chilly, and most people had added a light nylon jacket or pullover to their safari wear. At six o’clock sharp, the guides and their charges trooped off for the Jeeps that awaited them at the front entrance of the camp. I followed along until we were about halfway there, then when I was certain no one was looking, I took a detour. I’d scoped out the pathway the night before, and I was pretty sure it would lead me to where I wanted to go: the camp kitchen.

  The path ended at a well-used door, dirty with the telltale marks of thousands of handprints, battered by sun and time. Where the doorknob had been was a round hole—good for air circulation—so I pushed on the door, which moved inward with ease. I took a hesitant step inside the surprisingly cool enclosure and found what I’d expected: a small coterie of women in various stages of breakfast cleanup and preparation for the rest of that day’s meals.

  “Molo,” I called out, feeling a bit foolish doing so, realizing that given the countless combinations of dialects and languages that seemed to abound in Africa I could have been spouting gibberish rather than saying hello. Fortunately, the women were used to dealing with idiotic tourists all day, every day, and they gave me big, gracious smiles and returned the greeting. Phew, step one complete. On to step two.

  “Does anyone speak English?”

  A chorus of “of course,” “yes, sir,” “how can I help you?” rang out.

  I approached the nearest woman and asked if she knew someone named Matthew Moxley, a man who had worked at Mashatu sometime during the last year or two.

  “Oh yes, of course,” she told me, and the others noted their agreement with great enthusiasm. This was more like it. “What do you want with this man?”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” I lied too easily. “We come from the same town in Canada.”

  One of the gals let out a hearty guffaw and tried for it, “Sasacowchin?” They all began to chortle and in a shamble of voices attempted to pronounce Saskatoon or Saskatchewan, none of them getting it quite right.

  “Yes,” I agreed, smiling my face off. “You remember him?”

  “Of course. What do you want with this man?”

  Persistent bunch.

  “I’d like to find him. To say hello. He doesn’t know I’m in Africa. I want to surprise him.”

  The ladies made various noises, tsk-ing sounds and oohs and ahhs and clicked their tongues, as if considering the idea before one of them said in stilted words, “He no longer be working here.”

  “He be a schoolteacher now,” another added.


  “Somewhere in Botswana,” established another. “But not here.”

  “I don’t know where. Do you know where?”

  “I don’t know where. Do you know where?”

  “I don’t, Mma. You?”

  “Me neither. And what about you?”

  “No, I do not.”

  This chatter continued on for a quite some time, so long that I began to wonder if they even remembered I was there or what the original question had been, until finally: “But my sister knows.” Aha! Finally something I could use.

  “Does she now?” asked one of the others.

  “Well, she does not know this directly, of course, but she works with the boyfriend.”

  “Kevan?” someone said. “He has a job at Chobe, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he gives massage to the white folks there.”

  “That must be a hard job.”

  “Yes, a hard job.”

  “Hard on the hands.”

  “Yes, hard on the hands.”

  And on and on it went, without me.

  Time was a-wasting and I wanted in. “Matt has a boyfriend named Kevan who works as a masseur at someplace called Chobe?” I summed up with a hopeful look on my face.

  They looked at me as if wondering if I did not speak English, or perhaps had a hearing problem, or maybe wasn’t very bright.

  “Of course. Didn’t we just say this?”

  “We did, we did just say this.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  They were clucking like the hens in Chicken Run.

  “Is Chobe near here?” I asked hopefully.