She dislodged more rock. Yet more teeth came into view, their shine catching the sun, and she gave a short, involuntary grunt. She could now make out not one but three teeth. She didn’t know much about the shape of teeth—that was Eleanor’s speciality. But… but… Natalie tried to stop herself from thinking that she was in the middle of a major discovery. Her job was to excavate properly, carefully, making notes as she went along, taking photos as often as she thought necessary, and making drawings where that helped.
Could this jawbone and teeth be that important? she asked herself. There were no rules about who made the discoveries, save that Daniel had made more than anyone else. She had already found the Pelorovis fossil, and the “wall,” as she thought of it. If she really was in the middle of an important find, and it was written up in the newspapers, would her father read it, would Dominic read it? If they did, they would know that Africa was not just an escape for her, as they might have thought. The Ndekei business apart, she was being strengthened all the time by what she was turning up in the gorge. Once her articles had been published, she would be more than a newly minted Ph.D., of which there were any number, especially in a place like Cambridge. She would have her own form at last.
In her excitement she had forgotten the heat but the sweat oozing down her back, the wet hair at her temples, never went away for long. She stopped scraping, sat back, and wiped her face with her sleeve. She reached for her bag, which held the camera. Once she had that ready, she took the six-inch ruler from her jacket pocket and laid it below the jawbone, for scale. Then she took a dozen or so pictures, varying the view slightly each time and moving closer and then further away.
“These should do the trick.”
She hadn’t heard Jack return. She put the cap back on the lens of the camera and pointed. “Look. Teeth.”
Jack kneeled down and peered forward. For a full minute he held his gaze on the jawbone, then he whistled again. “Jesus, Natalie,” he said at length. “You could have a whole skull here.” He turned. “Look, I think we need my mother in on this, and Christopher—we need the best pictures we can manage. Do you mind?”
“No, no … not at all. You think it’s that important?”
“It could be. You’ve done a good job here, but this is your first jawbone. My mother has lots of experience with this sort of discovery—in particular, where other fossil bones might be in relation to this one. Having that experience is almost a skill in its own right. We need to bring her in and you need to watch her. You’ll still get the credit, for making the discovery, I mean. But Eleanor and Christopher, and Daniel of course, will know the best way to proceed from here on in.” He stood up. “You wait here. Don’t do any more excavating for the moment. I’ll leave Aldwai with you, so you’ll be safe, and go and get the others. You need to watch how my mother proceeds from here on in. She and Daniel have devised special excavation techniques, so as not to destroy other evidence nearby. We’re looking at another all-day session here. I’ll bring you some water, a sandwich, and some fruit.”
And he hurried off.
Natalie stared down at the jawbone. She supposed that Jack had acted properly, in bringing in the others. Eleanor and Daniel certainly had much more experience at excavating than she did, as Jack had reminded her. And that was what counted, that the excavation be properly completed. And yet … she couldn’t help but feel just a little disappointed. If she hadn’t told Jack about what she had found, he might never have noticed and she would have had this find to herself for a while longer. She might have found an entire skull all by herself, a discovery that might have made her famous throughout her profession. The skull might even be named after her. As it was, she couldn’t excavate any more on her own without going against the general ethos of Eleanor’s dig. She told herself again that that was as it should be. But, dammit, yes, she was disappointed.
She heard a noise behind her and turned.
On the lip of the gorge, about a hundred yards to the east, stood four men, carrying spears and wrapped in dark red cloaks. They stared down at her.
Now the anger rose inside her again.
Maasai warriors.
• • •
“What a beauty! Or should I say four beauties? A jaw, and three exquisitely curved sections of skull. Once again the gorge has delivered the goods. Champagne tonight, mother?”
They were all gathered around the table outside Daniel’s tent. It was two afternoons later. Careful excavation of the jaw, and associated fossils, had gone on throughout the previous days, until dusk had made further work dangerous. Aldwai and two other guards had spent two nights in the gorge, to protect the site from animals and, maybe, the Maasai, since Natalie had told Eleanor about the warriors who had been watching her.
Their work orchestrated this time by Eleanor herself, they had finished dislodging the fossils just on lunchtime and had in fact foregone lunch. Eleanor had spent some considerable time showing Natalie how to excavate a jawbone and, Natalie had to admit, she had a lot to learn. They had used a contraption not unlike a toothbrush but with metal wires at the end. The main point was to proceed slowly, keeping an eye out, as Eleanor counseled, for curves. Curves indicated either jawbones or skull bones, equally invaluable.
And three more curves had turned up, three sections of skull bone, each not much bigger than a stamp. Natalie had to admit to herself, secretly, that had she not told Jack about the jawbone, and had he not brought in Daniel and his mother, she might have missed the skull bones.
They were now nibbling strips of dried kudu meat that Naiva had left out for them. The fossils were displayed on the table in front of Daniel’s tent, being photographed and measured in their new surroundings, so that other scientists would be able to judge for themselves when the pictures were published later.
“How far were these bones found from the knee joint discovered by Daniel, Richard, and Russell?” Eleanor spoke generally, addressing no one in particular.
“Fifteen feet,” replied Daniel.
“And at the same level?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor turned to Jonas. “It’s your turn in the spotlight now, Jonas—you’re the anatomist. We need to know what the chances are that this jaw and cranium come from the same skeleton as the knee bones.”
Jonas nodded.
She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes. “When you’ve made up your mind, we’ll have to tell Russell. That’s only fair, but if your opinion is ‘yes,’ he’s not going to like it. He anticipated that something like this might happen.” She sucked the end of one arm of her spectacles. “Now that we have some teeth, that will help us decide what this creature ate. Arnold can help there. We have some skull bones, which will help us work out the size of his, or her, brain. Skulls are Jack’s speciality. A knee joint, some teeth, and some skull bones is quite a lot in paleontological terms, if it’s all one skeleton. This looks like a new species among man’s ancestors.” She looked around the table at each one of them. “If true, that’s big news.”
“Homo nelsoniensis, how does that sound?” Christopher looked at Natalie and smiled. “You found it, so it’s your right to name the thing.”
Natalie colored. “I think it’s a bit soon to be thinking of that, don’t you? In any case, how can you tell brain size from the few bones we have found?”
“By comparison with bones from the skulls of other discoveries, which are more complete.” Eleanor put back her spectacles. “I have the necessary books in my tent, so we can make a preliminary inspection tomorrow, once we’ve done all the measuring and photographing.”
She fixed Natalie with a glare. “If this discovery turns out to be what we think it is, and if your shelter idea stands up, you are going to be an overnight sensation—in the profession, I mean. And to think I was against you joining the dig, Natalie.” Eleanor smiled. “But surely you can see now how important the gorge is, how the situation is changing all the time. You’ve helped transform paleontology, my dear, in just a
few weeks. This gorge is as much yours now as anyone’s.”
Eleanor’s words were meant as a compliment but they cut into Natalie, as both women realized. Natalie’s good fortune, in the discoveries she had unearthed, only made the threatened destruction of the gorge harder to bear.
• • •
“Shoo, Jack. Go away. I want to talk to Natalie.”
Dinner was over for the night, Jack had let Natalie choose some music, and they had planned to sit by the campfire for a few minutes listening to Schumann’s Carnaval.
It had been Jack’s idea. About three nights before, knowing that Natalie liked her late nights to herself, he had suggested a post-dinner music session, when they talked music, ate chocolate, listened to whatever that evening’s choice of entertainment was, and then went their separate ways. Christopher watched these encounters from a distance but made no attempt to get involved. He hadn’t approached Natalie in anything other than a professional manner since the evening she had been in bed and he had withdrawn in silence. If it had been him.
This evening, however, Eleanor made Jack move. “Go on,” she insisted. “Well away, please. I want to talk to Natalie—out of earshot, Jack.”
“Going, going,” he grumbled, but grinned. “Let me just put some logs on the fire.” Then he disappeared.
Eleanor sat down next to Natalie and for a moment neither spoke. They stared into the fire and listened to the Schumann to the end. One by one, the others drifted from the campfire, to their tents.
“I can’t help but notice, Natalie,” said Eleanor softly, “I can’t help but notice that you still receive next to no post. I can’t do anything about the man you split up with—a cellist, wasn’t he?—but what about your father? Are you still estranged? Is it something I could help with perhaps? Would you like me to write to him, tell him what a success you are being here?”
Natalie didn’t know what to say. These sudden lurches into intimacy on Eleanor’s part were disconcerting, to say the least.
“Am I being a success, Eleanor? Yes, I’ve made some discoveries but the Mutevu business puts everything under threat.” She paused. “I hope you are not suggesting a quid pro quo—that you will write to my father, if I change my mind over Mutevu?”
Eleanor pushed up a strand of her hair where it had fallen from her chignon. “No, my dear, that’s not my plan at all. I’m sure you are torn every day about whether to give evidence or not. I’m not raking over those old coals, not tonight anyway.”
She put her hand on Natalie’s knee. “But with your father I may have some real influence—”
“But what would you say, and why would you say it?”
“Oh, I would start by saying what a success you are being, how you have made three important discoveries. How much we all enjoy having you in Kihara. But then I would say you have stumbled into a dilemma and that you need the support of your family, that your father, as a religious man, a man of the church community, must know forgiveness, redemption, that he must find space in his heart to move past his ordeal, that unless he does he will be trapped in a cage forever.”
Natalie was shaking her head. “But why would you do this for me? Because I am a woman, because I am new in the gorge, alone, because you pity me? Would you do it for Jonas or Kees or Arnold? For Daniel?”
“I’ve done things for Daniel, lots of times, yes. I don’t know about the others. I don’t think they need my help. They all get lots of letters, even Arnold, even though his are from lawyers.” She grinned.
Despite herself, Natalie grinned too. But she wasn’t grinning inside. “No, Eleanor, I don’t like the way I am being singled out for help—for charity, that’s what it feels like. I told you about my father, about his reaction to my mother’s death, not … not to elicit your sympathy, your pity, but because you asked.” She shook her head again. “I don’t want to be treated differently from anyone else, or like I am some sort of invalide. Please. I don’t need …” She paused. “I don’t need a mother.”
Eleanor didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did speak, it was to murmur, “There’s a big age difference between us, Natalie, so—yes, I could be your mother.” She kicked the fire to make the logs burn better. “But you’re forgetting that I lost my own father. I see us—you and me—much more as sisters. But I have learned to put the guilt behind me. I have learned to live with the ambiguity of my father’s death. And that is what you must do, in regard to your mother, what your father must do. I could tell him all that, in a letter.”
“No!” gasped Natalie. “No, please, no!” She gazed into the fire. “I just don’t see why my personal life has to have anything to do with the gorge. I don’t need the help you think I do. Please don’t keep watching me, watching how many letters I do or don’t receive, thinking I have some great invisible wound that gnaws away at me.” She took a deep breath. “I may not have adjusted to the ambiguity, as you put it, yet, and as you have done, but I can compartmentalize my life. I know how to concentrate, to keep my mind clear to spot the man-made among the random in the gorge. Haven’t I proved that?”
Eleanor patted her knee again. “Yes, you have, my dear. Better than I ever imagined. But as I have warmed to you—and I have warmed to you—I have grown more concerned. Yes, you are ferociously efficient as a scientist, very much in my own mold, if I may say so. But at other times, at the dinner table when we are not talking about our work, or around this fire, listening to Jack’s music, you can look so sad, so twice-bereaved as you once described yourself to me. How can I not react to that? I see nothing like that on Jonas’s face, or Kees’s, or even Arnold’s.”
Yet again, Natalie was hating what she was hearing. At the same time, Eleanor had said one important thing. She had not learned to live with ambiguity, not just the ambiguity over her mother’s death, but the ambiguity over the situation in the gorge, where her view was so different from Eleanor’s own, and all the others.
She didn’t want Eleanor to proceed with her plan, she knew that. She must change the subject.
“Is there …? Jack and Christopher … I see something between them … a fire, a friction … does it bother you, does it get in the way, here in the gorge?”
Eleanor looked annoyed for a moment or two.
“Are you sure?” she said at length. “They were always fighting as boys. Christopher especially was unruly. But he quietened down a long time ago. I think I told you the night you slept in my tent that he used to be very jealous of Jack, but I’m not sure that’s true anymore. There was the whole business of Gisella, of course, that was rather unfortunate but—”
“I don’t know what you mean. Who was Gisella?”
Eleanor was still smarting from Natalie’s quick-fire change of subject, still adjusting to the fact that Natalie was determined not to accept her offer of help, and she was obviously wary of saying too much about her sons, of being disloyal to one or the other. She looked about her, to make sure both men were beyond earshot, and then she spoke carefully, deliberately.
“Two years ago, Christopher fell in love with a woman called Gisella. She was a wildlife artist and he met her when he was taken to the opening of one of her shows in Nairobi. They had a whirlwind romance and I think, I’m sure, he had considered marrying her. Anyway, he brought her to the gorge, where the whole thing fell flat, or at least it did on her part. She went back to the city after only a few days, leaving Christopher bemused and deflated and very upset.”
Eleanor kicked the fire again. “But she was a decent girl—woman—she knew she had hurt Christopher and she wrote him a long letter.” She gently touched her hair where the strand had fallen down earlier. “He never told me what was in the letter but I could see he was hurting and so, one day when he had gone to Nairobi, I found the letter among his things and read it.” She made a face. “I shouldn’t have done it, but he was my son and I could see he was in turmoil, just as I can see that you are now in turmoil.”
She let a pause go by.
“G
isella had left, she said, because although she had arrived in the gorge as Christopher’s girlfriend, she had very quickly fallen in love with Jack.”
Natalie turned involuntarily towards Eleanor and Eleanor nodded.
“Gisella made it clear in her letter that Jack wasn’t aware of her feelings for him, that she had fallen for him ‘at a distance,’ as she put it, and nothing had gone on. But that was why she had left in such a hurry. She had no idea, she said, if Jack felt about her the way she felt about him but it was safer for her to leave, before … before, as I remember she put it, she hurt Christopher more than she was hurting him already.”
Eleanor stared into the fire before going on. “Imagine all that. Imagine the currents and crosscurrents swirling around in that whirlpool of emotion. Was Jack really not aware of Gisella’s feelings for him? These things have a way of revealing themselves after all. Was he therefore aware of the full extent of Christopher’s obvious distress? Did Jack know he had—however inadvertently—been part of the cause of his brother’s unhappiness? Deeper still, if Jack didn’t know about Gisella’s feelings, did she underneath it all want Christopher to tell Jack that she had fallen for him? Would Christopher have done that? And what did he feel about his brother? Gisella had said in her letter that Jack wasn’t aware of the situation, and had done nothing to bring it about, but was that true? Who tells the complete truth in situations like that?”
Natalie felt the warmth of the fire play on her cheeks. “Having read the letter, what did you do?”
Eleanor looked at her. “What would you have done, my dear?”
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