The Beautiful Mother

by Katherine Scholes

  THREE

  Essie stood motionless while Nandamara tied a leather sling across her shoulders. When it was in place he settled the baby inside, still wrapped in the fur. She remained deeply asleep, her body resting limply against Essie’s hip. Giga hovered nearby; as soon as the old man stepped back she began talking, an urgent tone in her voice.

  ‘The baby has just been fed.’ Simon passed on the translation. ‘So she will now have a long sleep. This time should be used for the journey.’

  Giga waited for Essie to nod, before continuing. She explained that because there had been two infants for her to care for, this one was not used to being suckled constantly. But that did not mean she could just be left alone. Between feeds her grandfather always carried her around if he was in the camp. When he went hunting he gave her to one of the older children. Sometimes the baby was placed on the ground to sleep, if someone was right beside her. When she awoke, she was picked up straightaway.

  ‘That is what you must do,’ Giga instructed.

  Essie nodded again, even though she couldn’t see how such a scenario could possibly be continued at the camp. With salaries for workers under pressure, they could hardly hire a nanny to carry the baby around, and everyone else would be too busy. The baby would have to adjust to some new ways.

  ‘She is always happy,’ Giga added. ‘Everyone loves her.’ She smiled encouragingly.

  Essie saw the same look replicated by all the other Hadza. It crossed her mind that no one would be likely to say if they were handing her a difficult baby. Back in England, Essie had heard women talking about croup, colic, teething pain . . . There was so much that could go wrong. And babies were such hard work. Essie’s mother had made that clear enough. She’d said it was the reason she’d only had one. Essie felt panic breaking over her again. She turned to Simon.

  ‘I don’t know how to look after her. You have to tell them – I’m not a mother.’

  When Simon conveyed her words there were exclamations of surprise, quickly followed by looks of frank pity. A man said something, which was met with obvious widespread agreement.

  ‘What did he say?’ Essie asked.

  Simon looked awkward. ‘He suggests that you get another husband. It’s what they would do.’ He shook his head. ‘I told you, they are wild Hadza.’

  Essie let out a brief, shocked laugh. ‘They don’t understand. It’s something we’ve chosen – not to have a family.’

  ‘I cannot translate that,’ Simon said. ‘It is too complicated.’

  Essie sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway. Just explain to them . . .’ She turned to address Giga and Nandamara directly. ‘I don’t know how to care for a baby.’

  Giga must have picked up her meaning without needing Simon’s help. She pointed at Tommy, as if feeding an orphaned animal were the same as caring for a small human. Essie remembered how she’d struggled, at first, to get Tommy to feed, and the satisfaction she’d felt as she watched the creature grow healthy and strong. For a moment, Essie was swept up in Giga’s confidence. Then she remembered how desperate the situation was for this baby. Essie offered the only chance for her survival. These people were clinging to a lifeline and were not about to ask if it was sound and strong.

  As Essie stood in front of Giga, paralysed by shock and indecision, she could feel the warmth of the little body resting against hers. Glancing down, she saw a fly settle on the edge of the sling and begin creeping down inside. She swatted it away, then left her hand there, on guard against its return.

  She became aware that a pair of teenage girls had edged close to her. They were both naked but for a slip of leather wrapped low over their hips. Their half-formed breasts were adorned with strings of beads. They studied Essie intently, taking in every detail – from her blonde hair right down to her feet. One reached out to pick at a bootlace. The other leaned forward to examine Essie’s watch. A vast gulf, in almost every aspect of life, separated these Hadza girls from Essie. Yet the fact that the baby – probably a relative of theirs – had been put in Essie’s care formed a connection that drew them together. The usual boundaries that would have kept them apart melted away. The potency of the moment seemed to be felt by everyone. There was complete stillness in the air, as if the normal rhythms of life had been suspended to let this interlude linger.

  Then Giga broke the quiet. ‘You must go, while she sleeps,’ she urged. Bending to peer into the sling, she made a gentle cooing sound like a birdsong. As she stepped away, her lips were pressed together. She nestled her own baby’s head into the crook of her neck as if seeking comfort. Nandamara’s face was impassive as he took his final look at his granddaughter, but there was a faint shimmer in his cloudy eyes.

  Essie said her farewell in Swahili, wanting to show that she was not a complete outsider in this land. Simon translated, turning her words into the Hadza blend of throaty vowels and clicks.

  ‘Kwaheri. Tutaonana.’ Goodbye. We will see one another again.

  A murmur of agreement rose from the Hadza. Essie automatically added the phrase most Africans used to complete their leave-taking, regardless of whether they were Muslims, Christians or followers of older beliefs: ‘Mungu akipenda.’ If God wills it.

  Simon didn’t translate immediately. He seemed to be hunting for the correct words. When he finally spoke, he was looking at the mountain. He talked, then, for so long that Essie wondered what he was saying. She began to wish she hadn’t mentioned God. Her father – a Darwinian and an evolutionist – had raised her as an atheist. Simon was struggling to convey something she didn’t even believe in.

  When the speech was over, Nandamara backed off a little and stood looking down at the ground. Simon picked up the bag of flints. Sensing that it was time to move, the dogs appeared at Essie’s side. They both sniffed cautiously, their snouts level with the sling. Essie gave them a warning stare in case they mistook the baby for some kind of prey. Rudie must have been scrapping with one of the Hadza hounds; his left ear was torn, blood staining the white background to his smudgy black spots. Meg was trying to lick the red away, but the other dog kept moving around. Tommy skipped over, still chewing a mouthful of leaves. Essie nodded to Simon. They were ready to depart.

  As Essie walked away, she kept her gaze fixed ahead. But she could feel the watchful eyes of the Hadza trained on her back – it was like a cord stretching behind her. She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved by the lengthening distance, or afraid.

  The journey back to the camp was mostly downhill. Essie picked her way cautiously over patches of loose gravel. Though Nandamara had knotted the sling with great care, she was afraid to trust it; she kept one arm over the small body that swung gently at her side.

  As she stepped from rock to rock or bent over to steady herself with her free hand, she tried to avoid jolting the sleeping child. The last thing she needed was for her to wake up too soon and want to be fed. Essie remembered one Christmas when her father had held a party for his colleagues. Her mother was sick, so Essie was allowed to stay up and pass round bowls of crisps and nuts in her place. She’d walked into the kitchen to find one of the professors’ wives holding a screaming newborn with one hand while struggling to prepare a bottle of milk formula with the other.

  Essie had looked at the distressed baby in alarm. The little face was red, lips quivering. The cries were so constant there was barely time for breathing. ‘What’s wrong?’

  The mother had given a weary smile. ‘Nothing. He’s just hungry.’

  The frantic sound had made Essie anxious. She felt an impulse to press her hand over the gaping mouth. She just hoped her mother couldn’t hear the disturbance from her bedroom. The noise had gone on and on, until the bottle was ready at last and the grasping mouth latched onto the rubber teat.

  Now, as Essie hurried in the direction of Magadi Camp, she felt as if she had a time bomb on her hands. And her fear of the baby waking up wasn’t all that weighed on her mind. She dreaded to think how she was going to face her husband and mot
her-in-law. One thing was clear: she would have to pretend that she was up to the task she’d taken on. The golden rule at Magadi – the starting point for each proposed project – was ‘Don’t bite off more than you can chew’. If you carried out an excavation, you had to be able to document it, fully and correctly. Once an area was disturbed it could never be studied properly again.

  While Essie worked her way across a field of pebble scree, she added up everything she knew about babies. It didn’t amount to much. She hadn’t grown up seeing little cousins being cared for – she had no relatives in England. Back in Tasmania they never saw her father’s family, who were on the mainland. Essie’s mother Lorna came from a big clan who lived in the north-east of the island, nearly a day’s journey from Hobart. Essie remembered holiday visits to her grandmother’s cottage by the sea. Some impressions were quite clear in her mind – falling asleep on a blanket by a smoky campfire; the voices of the adults, chatting and laughing, a comfort in the darkness; swimming in the clear blue sea with kids whose names she barely knew. But she was little herself; she’d had no interest in anyone younger. In her new life in Cambridge she’d gravitated to other single children. They understood the adult world she lived in and were more likely to share her interests. Aside from the episode at the Christmas party, Essie’s exposure to babies was limited to walking through parks and playgrounds or watching television.

  There was only one recent encounter with the topic that came to Essie’s mind. A journalist from the Guardian had travelled to Magadi to do a story on the Steps, focusing on a new footprint that had been uncovered since the initial discovery. She had originally been sent to Tanzania to research a story about a baby formula company that was targeting African mothers with a poster campaign. In an after-supper conversation she’d told everyone how babies were dying from malnutrition and stomach infections because people living in huts didn’t have the facilities to wash and sterilise bottles, or money to buy enough formula. The manufacturer didn’t care, apparently, as long as the market grew. While the young reporter talked passionately, Essie had watched the men trying not to link the issue with the woman’s own breasts. Her deep cleavage was revealed at the open neck of her shirt. An archaeologist from Harvard had abruptly changed the subject, talking to Ian about an article in a journal. Julia had joined in eagerly. She seemed as put off by the topic as the men. It was hard to imagine her as the mother of little children, let alone babies. In that way, she reminded Essie of her own mother. The idea of having to turn to her for advice was daunting to say the least.

  With nothing else to go on, Essie found herself clinging to Giga’s belief that Tommy’s care could be used as a model. She pictured the high shelf in the storeroom where she’d put his bottles when he no longer needed them. There had been two of them – clear glass, with brown rubber teats. The Ranger at Serengeti had sent them from his veterinary store after Essie radioed him for advice. Until they’d arrived she’d fed the gazelle using an over-sized eyedropper that was part of the equipment in the Work Hut. It had been slow and messy. She just hoped the two bottles had not gone astray.

  She planned her entry to the camp. She’d go via the storeroom, then straight to Baraka in the kitchen. She’d explain how to boil the bottles for three minutes – the same amount of time it took to kill germs in drinking water. Then she’d prepare some powdered milk, diluting it to half the normal strength as she’d been advised to do with Tommy early on. Tonight, she’d have to radio St Joseph’s Mission in Arusha and get proper advice on how to proceed. Maybe it would be better to use fresh milk from the Maasai, boiled and cooled. Watered down, perhaps. The nurses at the orphanage would know.

  Then, there was the matter of nappies. It had always been a mystery to Essie that Maasai babies had bare bottoms, yet their mothers never smelled of urine or walked around wearing stained cloths. There hadn’t been time to discuss this issue with Giga at the cave; for now, Essie had made do with ensuring the sling was lined with the piece of baboon pelt. At the camp she’d have to find old towels or sheets that could be torn up. Even that simple requirement would not be easy to meet; the linen cupboard was in need of restocking, and spare beds had been made up to impress the important visitors.

  Essie closed her eyes. Words shot through her mind like arrows.

  Frank Marlow.

  Sundowners.

  Research grant.

  Her heart began to beat faster. She imagined how Ian and Julia would react to her arriving home with a baby – their shock and disbelief giving way to outrage. What had possessed Essie to make such a rash promise that would affect others as much as herself? She knew children weren’t allowed at the camp. The only ones ever seen here were offspring of the Maasai women delivering milk. The workers never broke the rule by inviting their wives to visit. They understood that Magadi Research Camp was not a playground. It was a place of serious work.

  If Essie had brought home a baby who was sick, in order to arrange transport to Arusha, it would have been acceptable. Rescues had occurred before. Taking care of an orphan until it could be relocated to the Mission would come into the same category. But this situation was so different, even leaving the bad timing aside. The Lawrences would be sympathetic to the predicament of the Hadza family, but Essie felt sure they’d have insisted on a different solution – one that didn’t involve a little baby coming to live at the camp.

  Essie jerked to a halt and turned around. Simon slid to a standstill behind her.

  ‘We have to go back,’ she stated. ‘I can’t do this.’

  Simon looked at the little dark-haired head peeping from the top of the sling. He said nothing. Essie knew he was caught squarely between her and the people at the cave. He knew why Essie had to look after their baby. And he knew why she could not.

  While they stood there, a rhythmic flapping sound came from above. Essie looked up to see a marabou stork circling overhead. Even in flight the massive bird looked ugly, with its hunched shoulders and drooping throat. But this was nothing, Essie knew, compared to how it would appear close-up. Marabous were like creatures from a nightmare with their bare, scabby faces, matted feathers and jabbing beaks often stained with dried blood. They were the biggest land birds in the world – some were the size of a child. Being scavengers as well as hunters, they were equally at home picking through rubbish or stalking prey.

  Without warning the bird swooped down, as if it had detected the presence of a small, defenceless creature. Essie bent over, shielding the baby. Only last year she’d witnessed an attack on a young flamingo as it learned to feed on the shoreline of the lake. The marabou had swung the bird like a rag doll into the air, snapping its neck, then swallowing it in several bites. According to Ian, the predators also raided the hatcheries in the middle of the lake, sampling gangly chicks like party snacks.

  Straightening up, Essie eyed the stork as it flapped away. She felt a flash of anger, alongside the usual disgust. If her hands were free, she’d have grabbed a rock to hurl at it.

  ‘If it comes back, shoot it down,’ she instructed Simon, pointing her chin towards his bow.

  The man looked at her in confusion. The stork didn’t pose any real danger to an adult holding a baby. Seeing herself through his eyes, Essie was surprised at her reaction as well. She normally prided herself on being logical, methodical and steady.

  As the marabou approached again, riding the breeze like an aircraft, Simon snatched an arrow from the quiver on his back. In one motion he lodged the feathered end against the bowstring and drew it back. Picking up the threat, the bird veered sharply away.

  As if sensing the tension, the baby stirred. Essie froze, holding her breath, willing her to not wake up. When all was still again, Essie risked walking on. She kept a hand hovering over the baby’s head. The appearance of the stork proved that dangers could be lurking. She looked extra carefully for snakes, and listened out for insects – killer bees, wasps – even though they were rarely so far from bushland. She was glad that Simon was behind
her, watching her back.

  Soon, they were close to the camp. The plains, dotted with blue circles of water, were spread out below them. And there was the landing strip with its newly weeded gravel . . . Essie’s step faltered as a gleam of metal snared her gaze. A plane.

  Simon drew up next to her. ‘I heard the engine before, when we were at the cave. I thought it was someone flying over the mountain.’

  ‘It can’t be the Marlows.’

  ‘It is the wrong day for them to arrive,’ Simon agreed.

  Narrowing her eyes, Essie peered closer. It was not one of the zebra-striped Dorniers that belonged to the Lodge. Nor was it the battered Cessna that made deliveries to Olduvai piloted by an ex-mercenary who’d fought in the Congo; the fuselage of Erik’s ageing aircraft was pitted with bullet holes and one wing was dented. The aircraft parked on the strip had a smooth rosy sheen. It had sleek modern lines and sat low on its wheels. Essie had never seen anything like it before. She lifted her hand to her mouth as a sinking certainty spread through her.

  ‘It has to be them.’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘Who else could it be?’

  The silk dress stuck to Essie’s damp skin as she pulled it down over her head. A quick wash with a sponge had smeared the dirt rather than erasing it; the raw smell of untanned animal hide clung to her. As she leaned towards the mirror to apply some lipstick, her hands were shaky with haste; the line ran beyond her lips and she had to wipe it away as soon as it was done. From over in the Dining Tent she could hear snippets of light conversation. There was a rich, deep male voice that she guessed belonged to Frank Marlow. It dominated the interchange, but Essie also picked up Ian and Julia’s familiar cadences. Mrs Marlow seemed to be remaining silent. You’d hardly know there was another person there, except that Essie had glimpsed four figures through the gauze window of the tent, while creeping past it en route to the kitchen. A glamorous-looking woman had been lounging in a deck chair, head tipped back as she drew on a cigarette. She wore a striking turquoise dress with a skirt made of fabric so fine that it fluttered in the light breeze. As Essie had hurried on, she just had enough time to register Ian in his linen suit, Julia in her cream lace dress and a large-framed man wearing a white dinner jacket and black bow tie.