Eagle in the Sky

by Wilbur Smith

  When it was over he wrapped the tiny little blue body in a clean sheet and laid it tenderly in the cradle that had been prepared for her. He felt overwhelmed by a sense of guilt at having failed the two persons who needed him.

  At three o’clock that afternoon, Conrad Berg forced a passage of the Luzane stream with the water boiling above the level of the big wheels of his truck, and three hours later they had Debra in a private ward of the Nelspruit hospital. Two days later she became conscious once more, but her face was grotesquely swollen and purple with bruises.

  Near the crest of the kopje that stood above the homestead of Jabulani there was a natural terrace, a platform which overlooked the whole estate. It was a remote and peaceful place and they buried the child there. Out of the rock of the kopje David built a tomb for her with his own hands.

  It was best that Debra had never felt the child in her arms, or at her breast. That she had never heard her cry or smelled the puppy smell of her.

  Her mourning was therefore not crippling and corrosive, and she and David visited the grave regularly. One Sunday morning as they sat upon the stone bench beside it, Debra talked for the first time about another baby.

  ‘You took so long with the first one, Morgan,’ she complained. ‘I hope you’ve mastered the technique.’

  They walked down the hill again, put the rods and a picnic basket into the Land-Rover and drove down to the pools.

  The Mozambique bream came on the bite for an hour just before noon and they fought over the fat yellow wood grubs that David was baiting. Debra hung five, all around three pounds in weight, and David had a dozen of the big blue fish before it went quiet and they propped the rods and opened the cold box.

  They lay together on the rug beneath the outspread branches of the fever trees, and drank white wine cold from the icebox.

  The African spring was giving way to full summer, filling the bush with bustle and secret activity. The weaver birds were busy upon their basket nests, tying them to the bending tips of the reeds, fluttering brilliant yellow wings as they worked with black heads bobbing. On the far bank of the pool a tiny bejewelled kingfisher sat his perch on a dead branch above the still water, plunging suddenly, a speck of flashing blue to shatter the surface and emerge with a silver sliver wriggling in his outsize beak. Hosts of yellow and bronze and white butterflies lined the water’s edge below where they lay, and the bees flew like golden motes of light to their hive in the cliff, high above the quiet pools.

  The water drew all life to it, and a little after noonday David touched Debra’s arm.

  ‘The nyala are here—’ he whispered.

  They came through the grove on the far side of the pool. Timid and easily spooked, they approached a few cautious steps at a time before pausing to stare about them with huge dark eyes, questing muzzles and wide-spread ears; striped and dainty and beautiful they blended with the shadows of the grove.

  ‘The does are all belly now,’ David told her. ‘They’ll be dropping their lambs within the next few weeks. Everything is fruitful.’ He half-turned towards her and she sensed it and moved to meet him. When the nyala had drunk and gone, and a white-headed fish eagle circled high above them on dark chestnut wings, chanting its weird and haunting cry, they made love in the shade beside the quiet water.

  David studied her face as he loved her. She lay beneath him with her eyes closed, and her dark hair spread in a shiny black sheet upon the rug. The bruise on her temple had faded to soft yellow and palest blue, for it was two months since she had left hospital. The white fleck of the grenade scar stood out clearly against the pale bruising. The colour rose in Debra’s cheeks, and the light dew of perspiration bloomed across her forehead and upper lip and she made little cooing sounds, and then whimpered softly like a suckling puppy.

  David watched her, his whole being engorged and heavy with the weight of his love. From above them an errant beam of sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves and fell full upon her upturned face, lighting it with a warm golden radiance so that it seemed to be the face of a madonna from some medieval church window. It was too much for David and his love broke like a wave, and she felt it and cried out. Her eyes flew wide, and he looked down into their gold-flecked depths. The pupils were huge black pools but as the sunlight struck full into them they shrank rapidly to black pinpoints.

  Even in the extremity of his love, David was startled by the phenomenon, and long afterwards when they lay quietly together she asked, ‘What is it, David? Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, my darling. What could possibly be wrong?’

  ‘I feel it, Davey. You send out the strongest signals – I am sure I could pick them up from halfway around the world.’

  He laughed, and drew away from her almost guiltily. He had imagined it perhaps, a trick of the light, and he tried to dismiss it from his mind.

  In the cool of the evening he packed up the rods and the rug and they strolled back to where he had parked and they took the fire-break road home, for David wanted to check the southern fence line. They had driven for twenty minutes in silence before Debra touched his arm.

  ‘When you are ready to tell me about whatever is bugging you – I’m ready to listen,’ and he began talking again to distract both her and himself, but a little too glibly.

  In the night he rose and went to the bathroom. When he returned he stood for many seconds beside their bed looking down at her dark sleeping shape. He would have left it then, but at that moment a lion began roaring down near the pools. The sound carried clearly through the still night across the two miles that separated them.

  It was the excuse that David needed. He took the five-cell flashlight from his bedside table and shone it into Debra’s face. It was serene and lovely, and he felt the urge to stoop and kiss her, but instead he called.

  ‘Debra! Wake up, darling!’ and she stirred and opened her eyes. He shone the beam of the flashlight full into them and again, unmistakably, the wide black circles of the pupils contracted.

  ‘What is it, David?’ she murmured sleepily, and his voice was husky as he replied.

  ‘There is a lion holding a concert down near the pools. Thought you might want to listen.’ She moved her head, averting her face slightly, almost as though the powerful beam of the flashlight was causing discomfort, but her voice was pleased.

  ‘Oh yes. I love that big growly sound. Where do you suppose this one is from?’

  David switched out the flashlight and slipped back into bed beside her.

  ‘Probably coming up from the south. I bet he has dug a hole under the fence you could drive a truck through.’ He tried to speak naturally as they reached for each other beneath the bedclothes and lay close and warm, listening to the far-away roaring until it faded with distance as the lion moved back towards the reserve. They made love then, but afterwards David could not sleep and he lay with Debra in his arms until the dawn.

  Still it was a week before David could bring himself to write the letter:

  Dear Dr Edelman,

  We agreed that I should write to you if any change occurred in the condition of Debra’s eyes, or her health.

  Recently Debra was involved in unfortunate circumstances, in which she was struck repeated heavy blows about the head and was rendered unconscious for a period of two and half days.

  She was hospitalized for suspected fracture of the skull, and concussion, but was discharged after ten days.

  This occurred about two months ago. However, I have since noticed that her eyes have become sensitive to light. As you are well aware, this was not previously the case, and she has showed no reaction whatsoever until this time. She has also complained of severe headaches.

  I have repeatedly tested my observations with sunlight and artificial light, and there can be no doubt that under the stimulus of a strong light source, the pupils of her eyes contract instantly and to the same degree as one would expect in a normal eye.

  It now seems possible that your original diagnosis might have to
be revised, but – and I would emphasize this most strongly – I feel that we should approach this very carefully. I do not wish to awaken any false or ill-founded hope.

  For your advice in this matter I would be most grateful, and I wait to hear from you.

  Cordially yours,

  David Morgan.

  David sealed and addressed the letter, but when he returned from the shopping flight to Nelspruit the following week, the envelope was still buttoned in the top pocket of his leather jacket.

  The days settled into their calmly contented routine. Debra completed the first draft of her new novel, and received a request from Bobby Dugan to carry out a lecture tour of five major cities in the United States. A Place of Our Own had just completed its thirty-second week on the New York Times bestseller list – and her agent informed her that she was ‘hotter than a pistol’.

  David said that as far as he was concerned she was probably a lot hotter than that. Debra told him he was a lecher, and she was not certain what a nice girl like herself was doing shacked up with him. Then she wrote to her agent, and refused the lecture tour.

  ‘who needs people?’ David agreed with her, knowing that she had made the decision for him. He knew also that Debra as a lovely, blind, bestselling authoress would have been a sensation, and a tour would have launched her into the superstar category.

  This made his own procrastination even more corrosive. He tried to re-think and rationalize his delay in posting the letter to Dr Edelman. He told himself that the light-sensitivity did not mean that Debra could ever regain her vision; that she was happy now, had adjusted and found her place and that it would be cruel to disrupt all this and offer her false hope and probably brutal surgery.

  In all his theorizing he tried to make Debra’s need take priority, but it was deception and he knew it. It was special pleading, by David Morgan, for David Morgan – for if Debra ever regained her sight, the delicately balanced structure of his own happiness would collapse in ruin.

  One morning he drove the Land-Rover alone to the farthest limits of Jabulani and parked in a hidden place amongst camel thorn trees. He switched off the engine and, still sitting in the driving-seat, he adjusted the driving-mirror and stared at his own face. For nearly an hour he studied that ravage expanse of inhuman flesh, trying to find some redeeming feature in it – apart from the eyes – and at the end he knew that no sighted woman would ever be able to live close to that, would ever be able to smile at it, kiss and touch it, to reach up and caress it in the critical moments of love.

  He drove home slowly, and Debra was waiting for him on the shady cool stoep and she laughed and ran down the steps into the sunlight when she heard the Land-Rover. She wore faded denims and a bright pink blouse, and when he came to her she lifted her face and groped blindly but joyously with her lips for his.

  Debra had arranged a barbecue for that evening, and although they sat close about the open fire under the trees and listened to the night sounds, the night was cool. Debra wore a cashmere sweater over her shoulders, and David had thrown on his flying jacket.

  The letter lay against his heart, and it seemed to burn into his flesh. He unbuttoned the leather flap and took it out. While Debra chatted happily beside him, spreading her hands to the crackling leaping flames, David examined the envelope turning it slowly over and over in his hands.

  Then suddenly, as though it were a live scorpion, he threw it from him and watched it blacken and curl and crumple to ash in the flames of the fire.

  It was not so easily done, however, and that night as he lay awake, the words of the letter marched in solemn procession through his brain, meticulously preserved and perfectly remembered. They gave him no respite, and though his eyes were gravelly and his head ached with fatigue, he could not sleep.

  During the days that followed he was silent and edgy. Debra sensed it, despite all his efforts to conceal it – and she was seriously alarmed, believing that he was angry with her. She was anxiously loving, distracted from all else but the need to find and cure the cause of David’s ills.

  Her concern only served to make David’s guilt deeper.

  Almost in an act of desperation they drove one evening down to the String of Pearls, and leaving the Land-Rover they walked hand in hand to the water’s edge. They found a fallen log screened by reeds and sat quietly together. For once neither of them had anything to say to each other.

  As the big red sun sank to the tree-tops and the gloom thickened amongst the trees of the grove, the nyala herd came stepping lightly and fearfully through the shadows.

  David nudged Debra, and she turned her head into a listening attitude and moved a little closer to him as he whispered.

  They are really spooky this evening, they look as though they are standing on springs and I can see their muscles trembling from here. The old bulls seem to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, they are listening so hard their ears have stretched to twice their usual length, I swear. There must be a leopard lurking along the edge of the reed bed—’ He broke off, and exclaimed softly, ‘Oh, so that’s it!’

  ‘What is it, David?’ Debra tugged at his arm insistently, her curiosity spurring her.

  ‘A new fawn!’ David’s delight was in his voice. ‘One of the does has lambed. Oh God, Debra! His legs are still wobbly and he is the palest creamy beige—’ He described the fawn to her as it followed the mother unsteadily into the open. Debra was listening with such intensity, that it was clear the act of birth and the state of maternity had touched some deep chord within her. Perhaps she was remembering her own dead infant. Her grip on his arm tightened, and her blind eyes seemed to glow in the gathering dusk – and suddenly she spoke, her voice low, but achingly clear, filled with all the longing and sadness which she had suppresses.

  ‘I wish I could see it,’ she said. ‘Oh God! God Let me see. Please, let me see!’ and suddenly she was weeping, great racking sobs that shook her whole body.

  Across the pool the nyala herd took fright, and dashed away among the trees. David took Debra and held her fiercely to his chest, cradling her head, so her tears were wet and cold through the fabric of his shirt – and he felt the icy winds of despair blow across his soul.

  He re-wrote the letter that night by the light of a gas lamp while Debra sat across the room knitting a jersey she had promised him for the winter and believing that he was busy with the estate accounts. David found that he could repeat the words of the original letter perfectly and it took him only a few minutes to complete and seal it.

  ‘Are you working on the book tomorrow morning?’ he asked casually, and when she told him she was, he went on, ‘I have to nip into Nelspruit for an hour or two.’

  David flew high as though to divorce himself from the earth. He could not really believe he was going to do it. He could not believe that he was capable of such sacrifice. He wondered whether it was really possible to love somebody so deeply that he would chance destroying that love for the good of the other – and he knew that it was, and as he flew on southwards he found that he could face it at last.

  Of all persons, Debra needed her vision, for without it the great wings of her talent were clipped. Unless she could see it, she could not describe it. She had been granted the gift of the writer, and then half of it had been taken from her. He understood her cry, ‘Oh God! God! Let me see. Please, let me see,’ and he found himself wishing it for her also. Beside her need his seemed trivial and petty, and silently he prayed.

  ‘Please God, let her see again.’

  He landed the Navajo at the airstrip and called the taxi and had it drive him directly to the Post Office, and wait while he posted the letter and collected the incoming mail from the box.

  ‘Where now?’ the driver asked as he came out of the building, and he was about to tell him to drive back to the airfield when he had inspiration.

  ‘Take me down to the bottle store, please,’ he told the driver and he bought a case of Veuve Clicquot champagne.

  He flew homeward
s with a soaring lightness of the spirit. The wheel was spinning and the ball clicking, nothing he could do now would dictate its fall. He was free of doubt, free of guilt – whatever the outcome, he knew he could meet it.

  Debra sensed it almost immediately, and she laughed aloud with relief, and hugged him about the neck.

  ‘But what happened?’ she kept demanding. ‘For weeks you were miserable. I was worrying myself sick – and then you go off for an hour or two and you come back humming like a dynamo. What on earth is going on, Morgan?’

  ‘I have just found out how much I love you,’ he told her, returning her hug.

  ‘Plenty?’ she demanded.

  ‘Plenty!’ he agreed.

  ‘That’s my baby!’ she applauded him.

  The Veuve Clicquot came in useful. In the batch of mail that David brought back with him from Nelspruit was a letter from Bobby Dugan. He was very high on the first chapters of the new novel that Debra had airmailed to him, and so were the publishers; he had managed to hit them for an advance of $100,000.

  ‘You’re rich!’ David laughed, looking up from the letter.

  ‘The only reason you married me,’ agreed Debra. ‘Fortune hunter!’ but she was laughing with excitement, and David was proud and happy for her.

  They like it, David.’ Debra was serious then. ‘They really like it. I was so worried.’ The money was meaningless, except as a measure of the book’s value. Big money is the sincerest type of praise.

  ‘They would have to be feeble-minded not to like it,’ David told her, and then went on. ‘It just so happens that I have a case of French champagne with me, shall I put a bottle or ten on the ice?’

  ‘Morgan, man of vision,’ Debra said. ‘At times like this, I know why I love you.’