Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  “You know, Professor,” Mr. Palmer was saying, “I’ve been wanting to ask you a question about gorillas ever since we started out.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s rather silly. What do the scientific sahibs say about the gorilla? I mean about his relation to man. It’s a devil of a question, isn’t it? I mean some people say he’s our great-grandfather. Others won’t even admit he’s an umptey-umpth cousin.”

  The professor grinned. “You put it mildly. Some won’t even let the apes hang on the same family tree.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I think man and the apes had, at least, common ancestors. They have so many characteristics alike.”

  Lew Cable said, “For instance, man and gorillas are the only living creatures with heels.”

  He spoke, Jay thought, as though he was a great authority on anthropology, too. He had a way of speaking that made his words sound like the final utterance on a subject. They probably always had been. Few people would disagree with a man as large and tough as Lew Cable.

  “Heels are an interesting example,” the professor agreed. “But probably a more persuasive argument, Mr. Palmer, can be found in your roaring pouches.”

  “Really now,” said Mr. Palmer.

  “Yes. You don’t know it, but you’ve some on the sides of your throat. Everyone has. A hundred thousand years ago man frightened enemies with them. The pouches amplified his voice, just as similar pouches today amplify the voice of the gorilla.”

  “Wish I’d known that,” Mr. Palmer said. “Been of considerable use at times.”

  “I’m afraid you’d find them atrophied.”

  Jay said, “I’m beginning to believe Herr Gutzman was right.”

  “Right about what?” asked Cable.

  Jay told him and the professor what the German had said about murdering gorillas. “Like shooting a brave naked man, he said,” Jay told them.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry,” Lew Cable said. “Not sitting in camp.”

  The conversation died away a few minutes later. They were all tired. Even the excitement could not keep them awake. Also it was too cold to be any place except in bed. All the porters had gone to bed. Jay said good night to the others and went to the supply tent. Juma had set up the cot for him and made his bed. He put on his pajamas and a sweater, and crawled into the blankets. He would like to see a band of gorillas. The talk had moved his imagination; he wondered how much like men they were. Well, he wouldn’t find out. Lew Cable had pointed that out. Good old Lew Cable.

  The campfires made shadows on the walls of the tent. It was so cold it hurt his nose. He pulled the blankets over his head, leaving a small hole to breathe through. Something made a grating screech off in the bamboo. He thought it might be a leopard.

  CHAPTER 5

  FAR BELOW THE PLATEAU, near the edge of the lower forest, walking single file, with the young pygmy, Nygano, in the lead, was the hunting party. Jay could just see the line of men, tiny-looking, apparently barely moving, on the winding trail. He could see Mr. Palmer’s Stetson and the white tropic helmet of the professor. They had been walking an hour, since six, and they were almost out of sight. A high fog hid the sun, making the forest they were approaching dark and mysterious. Jay watched them, shivering with the cold. In a few minutes the forest swallowed the men and nothing at all moved below. He went back to camp for more coffee. It seemed very lonely. The hunters had taken three of the Somali boys for gunbearers, as well as three pygmy guides, and at dawn nearly a hundred of the porters had gone back to their villages. There were about fifty left, but they stayed in their huts. They did not like the cold.

  The cook watched Jay drink the coffee. He was a wrinkled old man with a part of one ear missing. “Gone, bwana?” he asked.

  “Yes. Out of sight.”

  “Shoot plenty beef,” the cook said happily.

  “Plenty.”

  Jay went to his tent. He felt a little sad. He was disappointed at not being allowed to hunt. He found a mirror and looked at his face. His beard was black and curly. He decided to shave. It was something to do, and besides his face itched. He got some hot water from the cook and lathered his face with the Yardley’s soap in the wooden bowl he had bought in Nairobi. He brushed the lather in well, then rubbed it in with his fingers, and finally brushed on more lather. He shaved carefully, holding his skin taut with his left hand and taking off the heavy beard with short strokes. He rinsed his face in hot water, and then in cold, and then he dried himself. He felt better. He could smell the odor of the English soap on his skin. He cleaned the razor and put it and the strop in the case. He put on his tweed coat and took the kettle the hot water had been in back to the cook. The fog had not lifted, but he didn’t care. Shaving had made him cheerful. It was something the razor people had missed, he thought; the cheerful effect of a shave.

  He got The Magic Mountain and sat outside his tent in a camp chair, but it was uncomfortably cold. The mist made his clothes feel cold and damp. He went back to the tent and lay on the bed. He found his place in the book, but he could not interest himself in the story. He knew Thomas Mann was a great writer, but it made no difference. He could hear the noise the cook made washing dishes and the conversation of the porters in their huts. The porters talked a great deal. He listened for the sound of a shot.

  Later he got off the bed and took the Graflex and made some pictures of the camp. The light was bad, but the Graflex had a fast lens. The porters watched him make the pictures. The high fog had shut off the mountains to the east so that the forest where the hunters had gone looked as though it had no end at all. He could not even see where the land began to rise for the next line of mountains. The grass around the camp was dark green and it was matted from being walked on wet. The moss in the trees was wet and stringy. It was a gloomy day.

  He went back to the bed and tried to sleep. He felt lonely again. The effect of the shave had worn off. Well, he could not shave again. That was where it was different from drinking. He was suddenly terribly lonely for Linda. He thought of their summer together. Summer: one of the four seasons. That was what he had had of her, four seasons. A year. And summer had been in New York. It all began there, in summer. He could remember too well.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “It’s fun riding on top of a bus,” Linda said. “I didn’t think you could see so much.”

  “I was saying something,” he said.

  “Oh, were you? Oh, look. Look at the cote dogs in that window”

  “Listen, can’t you hear me?”

  “Why, yes; I can hear you perfectly. What kind of dogs are those? They look like miniature schnauzers.”

  “They are miniature schnauzers and I love you.”

  “They have such funny mustaches. I think you’d look nice in a Vandyke.”

  “Because it would hide my face?”

  “No, silly. I think your face is nice as it is.”

  “Listen, Linda. I love you. Will you marry me?”

  “Of course, bearded men do have a certain appeal.”

  “Linda, will you marry me if I grow a beard?”

  “Darling, you don’t even have to grow a beard.”

  That was summer, he thought, lying on his back and looking up at the canvas walls of the tent. It had been a marvelous summer. And then had come fall and winter and at last spring. Spring when lovers walked in the rain. And Linda—the hell with spring! He would not think about it. He would not think about any of the seasons of that year, except sometimes at night, he said to himself. But never of spring.

  He thought about the hunters. He had not heard the sound of rifles. Possibly they were too far away for him to hear anything. He wondered again how it would be to kill a gorilla. Was it so much like a man? He thought of killing men and how you found out something about yourself that way, just as you did when you met a lion. He remembered the first killing.

  The captain nodded and he left the Press Room and got into the squad
car and they went north through the dark empty streets, moving very fast, but not using the siren. The wind rushed by the car and the tires hissed and the men did not talk at all.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Dillinger,” the captain said.

  Other detectives met them in the dim court of the apartment building. The captain took his squad up the front stairs behind the glass vestibule and he followed. They made black shadows on the ivory wall of the third-floor corridor. The captain hit the door with his hand. They waited.

  “Who’s there?”.

  “Nelson,” the captain said. “Baby-face.”

  A crack appeared in the door and the captain pushed hard and the man inside said, “Cops!” and the detectives went in shooting. The apartment was full of fire and noise and gunpowder that made his nostrils hurt. Then it was quiet and there was only a woman screaming in the apartment above. Someone put on the lights and he saw the man by the door was dead. On the floor of the smoke-hung living room were three dead men and a dead woman, their blood over everything. They had died without firing a shot. None was John Dillinger.

  A young detective with blue eyes said “Christ!” and was sick in the bathroom. A few days later the captain had him taken off the homicide squad.

  Jay had also felt sick and he knew he would not be good at killing men, either. He did not think this had very much to do with courage, but he was not sure. He had never been particularly interested in courage until he had seen the lion. He had never thought about it. He did not know if he was a coward or a reasonably brave man. It did not particularly worry him. Not as it did Bill. Poor Bill. He wished again he hadn’t called him yellow that day. He had not actually called him yellow, but it was the same thing. It really made no difference if he was afraid. But calling him yellow had fitted in with what Bill had been thinking about himself. That’s why it had been so unfortunate.

  Why the hell was courage important? You could be a brave man and still be a son of a bitch. In fact you were more apt to be a son of a bitch if you were brave. Why should Bill worry? He was a swell guy, brave or not. He was kind. That was the really important thing. Bill had been his best friend since school. They had lived together while Bill was taking postgraduate work at Columbia and he was a legman on the American. He was the only person besides Linda he really cared about. Bill had gone with Linda and him when Linda’s father had refused to appear at the church. And that spring, the spring he was not going to think about, Bill had flown from New York and had found him drunk in Miami and had taken him away when nobody else cared what he was doing or what he was feeling. Bill had arranged for him to come to Africa. No, he did not care whether Bill was a coward or not. It made no difference. But he did feel sorry for him; it worried him so. He pulled the blankets over his legs. It was cold in the tent. He could be sorry for Bill, but he couldn’t help him. He closed his eyes.

  “Bwana! Bwana!”

  One of the Totos was speaking to him. He had been asleep. “Yes,” he said.

  “The memsahib wishes you.”

  He sat up, blinking at the black face. He was still half asleep. He did not understand what the boy was saying.

  “Here, bwana,” the Toto said.

  He followed the boy out of the tent. He could not see very well in the sunlight. At the edge of camp he made out a line of loaded porters. He had an impression that Herr Gutzman had returned.

  A woman said, “Do you think we might camp here?”

  Her voice was husky, almost hoarse. He was terribly startled. He turned and blinked at the woman in gray flannel slacks and pale blue shirt who stood by the dining tent. She had tawny hair and lavender eyes.

  “Of course, if it’s not all right …” she began.

  It was strange to hear the husky voice he had loved coming from the lips of another woman.

  “It’s quite all right,” he said. He remembered now. The voice was not quite the same. It was the woman with the Ford station wagon. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a little slow. I’ve been asleep.”

  She was looking at him curiously. “I’m Eve Salles. I imagine the professor mentioned me.” Her voice had a faint English intonation.

  “Yes. Would you like to pitch your tent by the Erythrina tree?”

  “The one with the red flowers?”

  “Yes. You’ll have a splendid view.”

  She turned towards the porters. “By that tree, please, Herbert.”

  With the porters was a young white man. He had on a blue serge suit and a pair of tan shoes and a panama hat. “Come on,” he said to the porters. He sounded as though he hated them. They followed him to the tree and began putting down their loads. Jay thought he had never seen a more weird figure. The man apparently made no concessions to Africa at all.

  “Have you had lunch?” he asked the woman.

  “I haven’t, thank you. But I don’t want to make trouble.”

  “It isn’t any trouble. The cook’s dying for something to do.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “Yes. And it’s very sad eating alone. The others are out after gorilla.”

  “How exciting!”

  “Very.”

  She was looking at him again. “Why aren’t you with them?”

  “I’m just a sort of handy man around camp.”

  They walked to the dining tent. Jay looked at his watch. It was five minutes of twelve. Toto Minor had already set three places at the table.

  “Have a drink?” Jay asked. “We’ve only whisky and beer, though.”

  “I’ve some bottles if they’re not broken,” she said. “Would you like a gimlet?”

  “I’m afraid we haven’t a very elegant safari,” Jay said.

  “Oh, I like whisky. Only I’ve a desire for lime. Please do have a gimlet.”

  “All right.”

  She walked towards the Erythrina tree. The porters were already putting up the tent. She called, “Herbert, two gimlets.”

  Herbert paid no attention to her. He was holding one of the tent ropes.

  “Don’t be sullen, Herbert,” she said. “Find the gimlet bottle.”

  Herbert dropped the rope and went to a pile of boxes. He did look sullen, Jay decided, and he wondered why. He wondered who Herbert was. It was certainly a curious costume for a safari. A blue serge suit and tan shoes! Stanley and Livingstone must be turning over in their graves.

  The woman came back and said, “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “I’m Jay Nichols.”

  She gave him her hand. “How do you do.”

  He shook hands with her, feeling a little embarrassed,

  “And now,” she said, “have you a place where I can clean up?”

  “Use my tent. Over there. It’s a sort of supply tent, but it has a washbasin. I’ll send in hot water and a towel.”

  While she was gone, Jay went over to the Erythrina tree. “Can our men give you a hand?” he asked Herbert.

  Herbert was fixing the drinks. He did not look up at Jay. “No thanks.” His voice was unfriendly. He poured a light green liquid from a bottle into two tall paper cups.

  “Aren’t you having one?” Jay asked.

  “No.”

  Herbert put the bottle back in a canvas sack and carried the two drinks to the table. He was tall, but very thin, and his skin was pimply. The panama hat kept his skin pale. He came back and passed Jay without saying anything. A bad-looking guy, Jay thought. He could easily be taken for a minor gangster, a racetrack tipster or a bellhop.

  After a time the woman came out of the tent, looking very beautiful in the open French-blue shirt. Her skin was a golden tan. Her hips and buttocks were slim enough to look well in slacks. She was about twenty-five.

  “I do feel better,” she said.

  “It’s a long walk.”

  “I like walking. But the altitude. I thought my lungs would burst.”

  Jay wondered why she had come to their camp. She couldn’t be interested in gorillas, and this wasn’t
the country her husband was lost or dead in. Maybe she was afraid she’d miss them when they went to the Ituri.

  She held up the paper cup. “Here’s luck.”

  “Luck,” he said.

  The gimlet was cool and tart. It tasted of gin. “Alcohol is rather nice,” she said.

  “I’ve always thought so.”

  “Do you know,” she said, “I’d rather Herbert didn’t eat with us. He’s my driver.”

  “He doesn’t look as though he wanted to eat with anybody.”

  “He’s been sullen for several days.”

  Jay told the cook to give the white man his food on a table in front of the professor’s tent.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  They had a good lunch. There was canned chicken à la king and the cook had made baking-powder biscuits. With the biscuits they had a fine apricot preserve from Tasmania. There was still a faint, high mist, but the sun came warm through it. Herbert ate at his small table, watching them. Jay heard him coughing. He watched the woman all through lunch.

  She said, “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?”

  “A little.”

  “You heard about Lucien?”

  Jay supposed that was her husband. “Yes,” he said.

  “I’ve arranged to go with you to the Ituri to look for him.”

  “But we won’t reach the forest for a week or so.”

  “I know,” she said. “But when the Belgians said I could go, I started out. Now they can’t change their minds.”

  “They won’t. The Belgians are romantic, like the French.”

  “How little you know them,” she said.

  He remembered she had married a Frenchman. Lucien. That was a pretty name. “I’m afraid we won’t be much help in searching,” he said.

  “You’re going into the same district.”

  “But none of us, except Mr. Palmer, are very expert in the jungle.”