Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  “What’s that noise?” she said, after a pause.

  “That moaning sound, you mean?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s the whistling thorn.”

  When she frowned, he added, “Come on, I’ll show you.” He waved to the guard, Aldwai, to show that he was making a move, and stepped over to some acacia bushes. He pointed. “Whistling thorn, Latin name Acacia drepanolobium. Look, see these spikes growing out of the branches? They are two to three inches long and very sharp. But look also at these bulbous bases.”

  He pointed to a brown-red bulb about the size of a golf ball, also with a thorn growing out of it. “In themselves, these are quite succulent, but watch.” He pressed the narrow neck of the water bottle he was holding against one of the bulbs. After a very short delay, swarms of ants emerged from a series of holes in the skin of the bulbs.

  “Ughh!” breathed Natalie.

  “Yes,” said Christopher with a chuckle. “Whistling thorn is a perfect example of symbiosis—which is why the Maasai revere it so much. The plant allows these biting ants—and believe me they are biting ants—to live in its bulbs because when herbivores, giraffes especially, feed on the bulbs, in next to no time they get a mouthful of biting ants, and then they don’t come back. The thorn provides a home for the ants and the ants provide protection for the thorn.”

  They watched as the ants disappeared back inside the bulbs.

  “When the ants burrow into the bulbs, they make tiny holes in the skin. Then, when a wind gets up, the holes make a moaning sound. As the wind gets stronger, they then produce a higher-pitched whistle. Which is how they get their name, ‘Whistling Thorns.’”

  He drank some water.

  “Then there’s the fact that this thorn wood is very hard and resistant to termites. That makes it useful for spear handles, tool handles, and building. It makes good charcoal and its sap can be used as a gum. Very useful, whistling thorn.”

  He poured water into the palm of his hand, then slapped it on the back of his neck. A cooling maneuver.

  “Turn round,” he said.

  She did as she was told and, again using his hand, Christopher slapped water on her neck.

  “Mmm. Thank you,” she whispered. “What a treat.” Having Christopher do what he was doing reminded her that Mgina had failed to bring her shower water yesterday. In fact, she hadn’t seen her all day, now she thought of it. Not more trouble at home, she hoped.

  “Jack will be here soon. Maybe he will be able to help out.”

  “What do you mean? What does Jack have that you don’t?”

  “He’s an honorary Maasai. He’s a bit older than me and when he was growing up, there were some Maasai boys in the camp and he and they became firm friends—he speaks Maasai as well as Swahili and as well as he speaks English. One of the boys he grew up with was Marongo, who is now head of the local village, Ndekei’s village. Jack used to stay with Marongo and his family, in their hut, and took part in a celebrated battle when another tribe tried to steal their cattle. That’s when they made him an honorary Maasai.” Christopher pointed to his own forehead. “Jack has a famous scar where he was hit by a lion cub. He was lucky not to be blinded.”

  “Where is this hero now?”

  “Nairobi. He’s always been more politically involved than either my mother or me. There’s a lot of pre-independence maneuvering going on, a lot of black–white tension, as you can imagine and he’s—look!” he cried. “Richard is waving. They seem to have found something.”

  Natalie followed the line of Christopher’s outstretched arm. Sure enough, about a hundred yards away, Richard was waving, beckoning them.

  Natalie set off towards him. Her own shirt was just as stained with sweat as everyone else’s.

  Christopher went with her.

  As they approached, they could see Russell and Daniel gently lowering an animal skull on to a sheet on the ground.

  “This is just up your street, Natalie,” said Richard warmly. “Do you recognize it? I think it’s some sort of horse, or zebra.” He smiled.

  She knelt down. Russell and Daniel crowded round. A cloud obscured the sun and, temporarily, the temperature eased.

  “Richard, you’re right,” she breathed after a moment. What they had was almost half the skull of a horse-type creature, even containing a few teeth.

  “I’ll have to check, back at camp,” she said eventually. “But it looks to me like a skull of Equus plicatus, an early form of zebra.”

  “So it’s not new?” Richard sounded disappointed.

  “What’s the level here?”

  “Same as the tibia and femur. Two mill.”

  “Then if I’m right, it is nice confirmation of what we think we know, which is that the zebra moved into Africa from India about two million years ago—and then went extinct in India. We’re not talking hominids here, but this is an important discovery. A letter to Nature maybe.” She stood up and smiled at Richard and Russell. “Well done.”

  “I told you I have an eye.” Russell turned. In the heat of the day, with his pale skin, he was well covered up against the sun. But that only meant he was sweating more than most. “And Dick here has the hands. Look at how beautifully he carved that out of the rock. And what a pity it isn’t new.” He smiled at her and put his hand on her shoulder. “If it had been, Dick suggested we name it after you: Equus nelsoniensis. It’s big, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, wiping her brow with her sleeve. “You’re right again and that’s an interesting theoretical issue. We now know extinct species of hippo, of giraffe, of pig, of horse, of zebra, and of elephant. They all have one thing in common: the extinct forms are larger than the modern forms. Why should that be? What evolutionary significance does that have? And why is the opposite true for hominids? Modern man is larger than the extinct forms. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to discuss such a heavy issue in the baking sun,” said Russell. “But let’s explore that at lunch. It will help break the ice with Eleanor. We can include that in our theoretical paper. Maybe you’d like to draft that part, Natalie?”

  “Yes,” said Richard. “Good idea.”

  Natalie was flattered. Then, again, she checked herself. What did a prehistoric zebra have to do with an early form of man? And why should it be named after her? Was she being dragooned on to their side, and against Eleanor? Were Russell and Richard still intent on publishing their paper quickly, despite all that had happened? She couldn’t believe it.

  She looked at Christopher but couldn’t read his expression.

  “I can make a draft,” she said. “Of course I can, and I’d be pleased to. But there are other books I’d need to check, back in Cambridge, I mean, before I could go into print. And other colleagues I’d like to consult.”

  Richard looked at her and nodded.

  What did that mean? she wondered. Did it mean anything? Why was everything to do with this dig, even important discoveries, now complicated by layers and layers of speculation? She had never anticipated this.

  “Let’s take it one step at a time,” she said in a measured way. “I do have a few books back at camp. I’ll give you a more considered response at dinner. How’s that?”

  “Fine,” said Richard, “just fine.”

  • • •

  When Natalie got back to her tent there was still no sign of Mgina. The bed had been made, but from the different way the fresh towels had been folded and laid out, she could tell that someone else had done the cleaning that morning. So she just dumped her hat and sleeveless vest, in which she kept her bits and pieces, and left her tent, aiming for the area of the camp behind the refectory, near the storeroom, where the laundry was done. What had happened? One of the cleaning staff should know.

  She was halfway across the clearing when she saw Jonas Jefferson getting down from a Land Rover. He saw her at the same time as she saw him and immediately set off towards her. As he drew close, he took off his hat and growled, “Odnate’s de
ad.”

  “What? No, please no!”

  He wiped a hand across his face. “The family stopped giving him the pills.”

  She stared at him. Her throat was damp.

  “I’ve come across this before. Even in Britain, people don’t always complete the course of antibiotics. Some of the time, if you’ve a bad dose of flu, say, it may not matter, it delays recovery but that’s all. With more serious diseases, however, it matters very much.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “What you saw in Palestine wasn’t Africa. Palestinians are quite highly educated, relatively speaking, but here … here, traditional ways are still very powerful and they can, and do, reassert themselves. Once Odnate was feeling better, he got up, started playing, looking after the goats, and stopped taking his antibiotics. The family let him. Then, as soon as the symptoms reappeared, his parents concluded that Western medicine was no better than their own remedies. They resorted to their herbal cures, and didn’t bother to tell us—it was their affair. The poor boy died yesterday.”

  Natalie couldn’t think what to say. It was as if there was a big, empty space in her brain. It had happened before, when her mother died. “When is the funeral?”

  Jonas stared at her. “He wasn’t a chief or a warrior … He was a child.” He passed his hand over his face again. “I’m sorry, Natalie, but his body was left out in the bush last night, to be eaten by predators and scavengers. There’s nothing left of him to be buried … it’s the tradition here.”

  Natalie felt out of breath. This was a bad business and it had just got worse. “Did you see Mgina?”

  He nodded. “She’s upset but it’s a large family—I’m not saying the Maasai don’t feel grief the way we do because they do, keenly, and he was a lovely boy. But mortality is high in the bush. That’s not supposed to comfort you, but it is a fact. Mgina says she’ll be back in a day or so.”

  He took his hand off her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I have some sedatives if you’d like one.”

  Natalie still felt winded, but she shook her head. “No, no thanks. I’ll just lie on my bed for a bit. It’s so … so disappointing.”

  He nodded. “That’s the right word. It’s one of the first things you learn when you qualify as a doctor, that there are some people you can’t save, even though, according to the book, according to the rules, they should survive. It’s harder here because local traditions are so strong, and so different from ours. You’re not a doctor, so it’s hit you harder. Pity there’s no hard liquor on this dig—otherwise, I could prescribe a shot of brandy for you.”

  He smiled.

  3

  WITNESS

  Natalie looked at the packet of cigarettes she held in her hand. The moonlight was so bright tonight that she could read the writing without the aid of the hurricane lamp. The campfire was alight—just—but its crimson glow was dim. She took a cigarette from the pack and slipped it into her mouth. When she flicked open her lighter, the flame jumped up and caught the tobacco. She didn’t know which she liked more, the first taste of her first cigarette of the day, or the first sip of whiskey.

  She put the cigarette pack in the breast pocket of her shirt and leaned forward to light the hurricane lamp. After it had caught, she turned the flame down low and savored the tang of kerosene in her nostrils. In the distance she could just make out the skyline of the Amboseli Mountain, its smooth shoulders sinking into the maroon gloom of the plain.

  She knew that as soon as Russell saw the glow of her lamp he would be over. Tonight, she definitely needed company. Odnate’s death had upset her. Having, as she thought, rescued him, she felt as if part of herself had died with him. She felt partly cheated and partly foolish for thinking that it was so easy to save a life, and she also felt naive that she had been so ignorant of the local customs that, in the end, had won out.

  Naïveté. It was the curse of her life. It was her naïveté that had got her involved with Dominic and had, in the end, been responsible for his moving on, moving on without her. For the umpteenth time she relived that last afternoon, by the river in Cambridge, against the backdrop of Trinity and King’s College Chapel. By Cambridge standards it had been a sunny day, gloriously warm but with clouds too, blotting out the sun from time to time. They were walking but both wheeling bicycles, planning to ride into the countryside, as they sometimes did. She still wasn’t sure whether what had come next was sophisticated or cruel, or both.

  Dominic would often hum or softly whistle tunes and it had become their private game for Natalie to guess what he was humming or whistling. If she couldn’t guess the tune, she would try for the composer.

  “Oh, I know that,” she had said enthusiastically that day. “It’s from that new musical … what’s it called? … that’s it, West Side Story. Leonard Bernstein, that’s the composer.”

  “Well done … and the tune?”

  “America.” She sang the words, “I-want-to-be-in-Ame-ri-ca, Okay-by-me-in-Ame-ri-ca …”

  Dominic had smiled and said, “Bernstein’s asked me to play with him.”

  She had stopped in her tracks. “Dom! That’s wonderful! When? Where?”

  “New York. Just before Christmas.” He had stopped too. “It’s part of a tour I’m going on. A year on the road … Canada, Mexico, twenty-seven of the United States.”

  “A year?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Starting when?”

  “I leave for Vancouver next week.”

  A plane droned by, overhead.

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  “A few months.”

  It was a warm day and the skin on Natalie’s throat felt clammy. But she had shivered. This was the first she had heard of any tour.

  “Vancouver couldn’t be further away.”

  He had nodded. “I like it that way. I’ll be there a month, rehearsing and giving master classes, before moving on. A fresh city every three or four days, for months on end. A complete break.”

  The last three words were spoken as the clouds cleared the sun and his face was suddenly on fire. But she could see that it wasn’t just the sunshine.

  “A complete break?” she had repeated.

  He nodded. “Susan and I are getting divorced. I need to devote myself to music for a year, at least.” He pointed to the bicycles. “This was always … you’ll be Dr. Nelson soon, moving on.” He wiped his lips with his hand. “It’s time, Natalie. I can’t take you with me.”

  Just then, they heard—very faintly—the choir in King’s College Chapel. It was the middle of the afternoon, on a weekday, so it must have been a rehearsal. But the voices reached them, clear enough to be heard, but faint enough that she couldn’t make out what was being sung.

  “I am sorry, Tally,” he had whispered, using the name her family and friends had used since she was a girl. He had leaned across the bicycles and kissed her cheek. “Music comes first for me, you know that. You’ve always known that. More than marriage, more than children …” He took her hand where it rested on the bicycle handlebars. “More than this.”

  He had kissed her hand. More had been said, much more, but Natalie wouldn’t plead, so they had talked around the subject. One of the things she had always loved about Dominic was his voice, mellifluous, milky, melodic, and even that afternoon, amid her anguish, she had loved the sound of him speaking. But all she had achieved, really, was delaying his departure. She knew that couldn’t be delayed forever and she let him kiss her on her cheek a second time before turning, mounting his bicycle, and riding off.

  She had remained where she was, the sound of the choir still clear, still faint.

  She had never discussed divorce with Dominic, never pressured him in that way. But she had imagined it—oh, how she had imagined it.

  Her distress that afternoon had soon given way to anger. Anger was never far away for her, as she realized all too well. And she knew where it came from. While Owen Nelson had been away in the war, Violette had had an affair. It had lasted for months, but V
iolette had assumed that Natalie was too young to understand, or even to notice. But Natalie was not too young, and she had noticed. The man was an RAF pilot stationed near Gainsborough and although the affair had gone on for months, it had ended long before Owen returned, slightly wounded. But that wasn’t the point. Natalie had always been angry at her mother’s betrayal, angry that she couldn’t tell her father without wounding him still further, and doubly angry, triply angry, that Violette had taken her daughter’s affair—Natalie’s—so badly, so much to heart, when she had done the same thing herself, only worse, because she had been already married herself. That was one of the reasons Natalie had followed a science career and not a musical one, to get back at her mother, to spite her. The fact that her mother’s death was a mystery angered her too. Was her mother having the last word? In coming to Africa, Natalie hoped she was escaping her anger.

  Eleanor had mentioned a fresh mystery at dinner. A small plane had crashed near Mutonguni, east of Nairobi, killing the pilot and two passengers, who were senior members of KANU, the Kenya African National Union. Although the crash had been blamed on the fact that the plane had been refilled with the wrong kind of fuel, jet fuel not propeller-type Avgas, and was therefore an accident, the possibility remained that the switch had been deliberate, and politically motivated. With independence not far off, almost any event now threatened to have political overtones. If Richard and Russell’s invasion of the burial ground should be discovered …

  Natalie pulled on her cigarette and observed Russell’s outline as he moved silently across the ground between his tent and hers. He was wearing his usual white shirt and jeans. He slumped into his usual chair.

  He sat for a few moments without speaking, until his breathing became more regular.

  Natalie had already laid out the whiskey and what remained of the chocolate on the writing table. Russell snapped off a piece and slid it into his mouth.

  Chewing, he said softly, “A better day today.”

  Natalie said nothing. Russell almost certainly didn’t know about Odnate and if he did his priorities were elsewhere. The discovery of the ancient zebra skull had brought about a lively discussion at lunch, and then again at dinner. There had been no mention of the tibia and femur, or of the burial ground, and to an extent the unpleasantness of a few days before, if not forgotten, had been put aside.