by Linda Ihle
“That’s bloody makeshift,” she said out loud. “Jesus!”
She returned to the thorn tree for the last of the bigger limbs and was dragging them back when she heard the lion roar, very close this time. She ran with the limbs and piled them haphazardly atop the others, then realized she had essentially fenced herself out. Frantically she pulled her stockade apart, ensuring the limbs she removed would be within her reach once she was back inside, then, from the inside tried to repair the gap, all the while glancing around to ensure that she was not being stalked, cursing as the massive white thorns found purchase in her fingers. Partially satisfied with her jerry-rigged fence, she climbed up into the first crook of the tree, reached over for her treasures and began to carry them, one by one, to the top fork, taking the water and cup first and wedging them into a shallow indentation in the broad trunk across from her perch. Then she brought the biltong, placing that on top of the kerosene can. She went back down and retrieved the cigarettes and lighter, tucking the latter into the front of her bra and the cigarettes behind the front strap. Finally, she went down and picked up the AK-47. Holding it by the stock, pointing downward, she carried it up to her perch and hung it by its strap from a nearby branch. It swung there briefly, then stopped, gleaming dully in the red glow shed by the dying sun. It appeared to have been maintained better than the rusty-barreled rifle one of the guerillas had leaned against the tree.
Devin took the tin cup left for her and examined it, wondering aloud what diseases lurked in there. Her thirst overcame her caution and inbred distaste for sharing drinking glasses, especially those which had been used by muntus[6]. She couldn’t even wipe the rim on her bra or pants – she reasoned that they were probably filthier than the cup – so she poured herself a cup of water and drank it down, careful not to spill a solitary drop. It was cool, tasting of earth and limestone and the ingrained heat of the bush and, at that moment, was the best thing she had ever tasted in her life; better even than a cold, cold Coke on the shaded verandah of the sports club. She put the cup back and pulled a cigarette from the pack, lighting it with the Ronson, and inhaling deeply. Immediately she was dizzy and almost lost her balance, but held on, persevered, and took another drag. Blowing the smoke out through her nose and mouth, she stood up in the fork to peer over the top of the tree. It never failed to move her: The sun was no longer visible, but its scarlet entrails, scattered across the blackened, bruised horizon, marked its passing. Above the scarlet hovered orange-bottomed cumulus clouds, their tops paler hues of yellow and lilac, and above them the royal blue sky. The earth was still at that moment. Not even the gluttonous flies buzzed. Devin gazed in wonder and felt that old familiar melancholy.
Is he waiting for me at Kariba? Does he even remember I’m coming? Will he recall something promised so many months ago while he was stoned? I bet he’s not even there.
She brushed it off as her eyes prickled with hot tears. This was no time to be sitting around feeling sorry for oneself. She finished her cigarette and spat on the glowing end to extinguish it, then dropped it, watching the butt fall twisting to the bottom of the tree. She resumed her seat in the fork, this time allowing her legs to rest on the crook holding the AK-47, and reached for the biltong. As she took the first bite, breaking and tearing at the meat with her teeth, she heard the hyenas coming. Holding tightly to her biltong, she rose and peered again over the top of the tree. There they were! She shuddered and almost lost her footing. Five hyenas loped through the grass alongside the path the soldiers and their woman had followed earlier that afternoon. They moved with no stealth, just an arrogant, lithe stride, their huge heads bobbing. They paused as one about thirty feet from the corpses, eyeing both the meal and those who had made it there before them. She had watched them before, approach a feast where the vultures had beaten them to the mark, and knew that the birds would not intimidate them. Further, with darkness spreading across the valley, the vultures seemed fidgety, ready to return to wherever the hell it was they came from. At that moment, Devin realized she had never laid eyes on a vulture’s nest. Where did they roost? To her, they had always been visible in the deep blue of the sky, on the ground at a kill, but never at rest.
They had made some inroads on the corpses lolling against the rock and had even managed to remove some of the branches used to cover the bodies, but plenty remained for the hyenas and jackals. As the hyenas approached, one of the vultures took flight dragging with it a glistening piece of intestine pendant from its beak like a gigantic white worm. One hyena barked its shrill jocular cry, then darted into the fray. The others followed suit and the rest of the vultures took off, carrying with them various grisly trophies.
The noise was horrendous, as the hyenas gorged themselves, cracking bones and skulls with their enormous powerful jaws, slobbering and snarling and fighting over the mess. One was bitten by a mate and howled. He darted off to the side, carrying either an arm or part of a leg -- it was hard to tell now as the night had dropped like a curtain on a poor play: No encore. He lay down in the grass as his companions ripped and tore at the bodies, sipped from the pooled blood in the stomach cavities left by the birds, and pulled unspeakable things from the corpses, their exit marked by sucking, plopping noises, like boots in a quagmire.
Devin slowly lowered herself back into the fork. The biltong in her hand no longer seemed that appetizing, but she knew she must eat. As she settled in, trying to ignore the sounds of the hyenas gorging themselves, she heard the cats approaching. Once again, she knew the hyenas would have no qualms about continuing to feed; safety in numbers was the name of their game. She peered through the leaves at the darkening scene, barely discernible now, then looked down toward the path. Standing there, still and regal, was a lioness. Within seconds, two others joined her. Devin watched them approach the scene, dropping to their haunches, followed quickly by a fast belly crawl, like any domestic cat. They went by under the western canopy of the tree and emerged from the grass, standing and grunting.
As one, the hyenas turned and surveyed this latest threat to their repast, then turned back to the feast, snarling and gobbling at the meat. The lionesses separated and took a three-prong approach to the situation. The middle one led the charge, commencing the attack with a growl and snarl that made the hair on the back of Devin’s neck rise. She sat absolutely still and squinted through the leaves ensuring that she could make out all three cats at all times. One of the hyenas stood his ground, snarling and coughing, but the cats went around him and fell upon the corpses. He nipped at their haunches, then left with a garbled howl which probably meant his mouth was full. One of the cats picked up the remains of a body and carried it off, passing right under Devin’s tree, before disappearing into the night. The other two remained there feeding until a half moon emerged above the jagged rise of the kopje. Once satisfied, they left silently, dragging with them morsels to eat later or to feed to mates or cubs.
Devin sat in the relative silence, eyes large, adrenalin coursing through her veins, listening to the night. The crickets resumed their chirping, and the rodents their squeaking. The leopard coughed close by and she sat still, listening, waiting. The lions seemed not to have smelled her there, so perhaps the leopard too would scent only the blood and gore remaining from the three bodies. She peered behind her, under the tree, but saw nothing. After about ten minutes of this, she relaxed, and finished the biltong. Quietly, she reached over for the kerosene can and poured a little water into the tin cup. The gdonk! gdonk! sound of the water splashing inside the can as she poured it startled her and she almost dropped it. Hands shaking, she replaced the can in the nook and drank the water. She replaced the cup atop the can, then reached over and pulled the AK-47 onto her lap. Using her fingers, she examined the strap mechanism and discovered it was removable. She took it off carefully, placed the weapon across her lap, and used the strap to tie herself to the tree trunk.
Night set in and, with it, the customary chill of the African bush. Devin rubbed the goose pimples o
ut of her arms and legs, then curled into a seated foetal position, the weapon cold and hard between her belly and thighs, her arms clasped around her legs. She dozed.
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Mick James, dressed to the nines in his stage gear - hipster burgundy bell bottoms topped with a tight-fitting black, knit shirt, his large peace sign dangling on its leather cord from his neck and a lace-up wide, brown leather band on his left wrist - stood in shock at the rear of a small crowd of people who had again arrived at Kariba airport to greet friends and family. He pushed at a stray strand of dark blonde hair that had escaped from his pony-tail. Like the others who had come to the airport to meet the plane that afternoon and were told it had been delayed and they should return later, he had.
“Pardon me,” he called out in the dead silence that had followed the latest announcement to the crowd by an official of Rhodesia Airways, “what are you saying? Are you serious!?”
“Yes, sir,” the uniformed man responded. “I regret that it would appear that we have had yet another shootdown…..well, that’s what we think right now. We haven’t been fully briefed yet, and only actually know that the flight coming from the Falls was supposed to be in by one o’clock.” He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “The Security Forces have begun an investigation along the route. We should know more very soon now. I am so sorry. I have phoned the Vic Falls airport and asked for a list of the passengers on the flight,and they seemed to know a bit more than I do right now, but repeating anything they said without corroboration would be conjectural and, um, inappropriate.”
Mick sought backwards with a shaky hand for the armrest of a chair where he had been seated for nearly an hour awaiting the latest news and sat down hard. She’s gone? She’s gone! Jesus! I was going to make it right, for once in my miserable fucking life, I was going to make it right. Wait! Maybe she changed her mind….maybe she wasn’t on the plane. She’s been a bit distant lately. Sick and tired of all the empty promises, I suppose. Oh, man, my wowie-zowie girl! Please, please be alright.
The official had resumed speaking, but Mick heard only scattered words - go …. home… wait… pray…..
He shook his head violently as tears sprung in his heavily lashed, large blue eyes. Prayer? Yeah, that’s going to do the trick! That’ll be the ticket! He rose unsteadily and walked quickly out to his car, a blue Renault. Moonlight glinted along the roof of the squat vehicle he had washed by hand and polished himself that morning. In anticipation. Mick climbed in and drove away slowly, watching for eye-shine on the winding road down to the Cutty Sark. He parked and walked in through the lobby to the dining room. The sombre mood enveloped all and everything, even shrouding the normal clatter of plates and silverware, the happy chatter, the laughter. All gone.
The rest of the band were at a table towards the back. They looked up at him as he entered, then looked away, except for Jane, the wife of the lead guitarist Rodney Flynn. She rose and took him in her arms. “What have they said, Mick?” she asked, hugging him tightly, feeling the sob grow in his chest. He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. “Was she on the plane?” she insisted.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “They say it’s probably another shootdown.” He shook his head, releasing himself from her grasp, and sat down next to the bassist who placed an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t know if she was. I don’t know where she is. I tried to ring her room at Vic Falls hotel after the first time I went to that bloody airport. No answer and so I rang the concierge and she had no bloody idea.”
“Well, we will just hold thumbs, Mick,” Jane said, handing him an icy gin and tonic. “You won’t have to deal with playing tonight or even for the rest of the week; they’ve cancelled all the gigs for now.”
“Fabulous!” Mick retorted. “Are we gonna pack it all in then or work out the last couple of months, Rod?”
“I dunno. If this was another shootdown, it takes a while for people to go back to normal again.” He sighed. “I will talk to the manager in the morning after, I hope, we know more.”
“If she was on the bloody plane and she is gone, then I will be too,” Mick stated. “Sorry, guys, but there was just too much riding on this rendezvous.”
5.
More than 200 miles away, the shrill of the telephone shattered the calm pronouncement of grace, cutting off the woman’s words before she even had a chance to utter, “Amen.” Pale green eyes stared at the squat, black instrument on the table under the lacy-curtained windows. Dead silence reigned at the table as the bell rang, again and again. The cook poked his head around the corner of the kitchen wall and stared. Even he knew that it was improper to make telephone calls during the dinner hour. The brindle bull terrier, Butch, ears pricked, rose to a sit, and cocked his head quizzically, watching the woman. He knew too – this was an oddity. A fat silver tabby named Maude curled up on Devin’s chair, lay unconcerned and unaware of the travesty, waiting only for the tiny little morsels of meat that the young girl would sneakily hand her.
“Bloody hell!” The woman rose from her seat at the head of the table and made her way past the backs of the children seated, transfixed with curiosity, waiting to eat, supper getting old and cold. She grabbed the receiver and lifted it to her ear, pulling off a flat, clasp earring of faux gold and equally fake emeralds, flicking back a strand of auburn hair from her ear. Obliterating all obstacles to hearing who would have the nerve to ring at this hour. “3490, good evening?” she stated coldly.
They watched from the table, seeing her become so quiet and still, the colour seeping from her face. She saw them staring and turned her back to them, looking out into the driveway alongside the house, across the hibiscus hedge to the neighbours’ house, beyond that even, to the streetlight now flickering alight at the corner of Bauhinia Road and Allan Wilson Avenue and farther out into the cold anonymity of the stars now beginning to prick through the black shroud of night sky. She reached out and took hold of the wrought-iron burglar bars on the dining-room window as if seeking their strength, trying not to slump down into the telephone chair.
“Yes,” she finally spoke, “that is correct.” Her voice seemed far away, as if emerging from a black tunnel a train had just passed through, a muted echo. She released her grip on the burglar bar and rested her forehead on the hand, elbow propped on the cold window sill. She closed her eyes. “Say again, where is she?” She listened and her silence turned to a gasp and finally she succumbed and sat down hard on the embroidered cushion of the telephone chair. The children could now see her white profile, only partially obscured by a flap of hair. Her eyes were squeezed shut, denying what her ears were hearing. “Lost?” she said quietly. “Lost?” The second one was louder, more demanding. “Thank you, Paul,” she said finally, and slowly replaced the phone on the receiver. It squatted there, mocking her. She turned from it and faced the children at the table.
“Where is your father?” she asked the oldest, Mark, a pre-teenaged boy with white-blonde hair, the same pale green eyes as his mother and sister Devin, and a galaxy of freckles across his nose. He stared at her, afraid to answer, afraid it would be the wrong answer. “What’s wrong?” He swallowed hard. “Who’s lost?”
“Where is your father?” she repeated. “Do you know?”
“Um, ja, he’s in Chikurubi, still,” the boy responded. “They said they found more evidence of poaching and….”
“Okay, so it doesn’t matter to him then,” his mother snapped. “Never did, never bloody will.” She rose to her full height of less than five and a half feet and faced them both. She took a deep breath, preparing to speak, then collapsed again onto the chair. Her bottom lip quivered as she fought to master the fear, the art of speech, under such circumstances, afraid to cry, lose face, in front of her remaining children. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed the cook lurking near the open door to the kitchen, wringing his hands in a worn, grimy dish towel, eavesdropping. “Somebody has died,” he thought to himself in English. “For
sure, somebody has died, isn’t it?” He caught her eye and stepped back out of the glare.
Again she faced her children. “They shot down another plane today,” she stated. Matter of fact, there it was lying out there, revealed, astounding, like a clump of snot on the altar cloth. The youngest child, Julia, a girl of ten, copper-coloured hair and darker green eyes, gasped and put her hand over her mouth. The tears started, glistening there under the chandelier. “Devin was on the plane.” There she had said it – it was out. “They’re not telling anyone at the newspapers or the radio if anyone escaped or if all were lost, only the families,” she gasped for a breath and nearly choked. She rose and walked to the kitchen door and closed it firmly before returning to her seat at the table.
Speaking not much above a whisper, she told them what the strong Afrikaner-accented voice on the telephone had told her. “And they don’t know yet. They think the pilot got the plane down, but they can’t find it. They’re working on rumours and the last call in from the pilot. They don’t know whether anyone survived.” She sighed and reached for a 30-pack of Matinee cigarettes and box of matches on the sideboard. She raised the lid slowly and pulled one out, lighting it as if it were the most normal thing to do at this time, this moment. She dragged the smoke in and puffed it out, blowing it above the heads of her children. It was innocuous there.