Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  Bill was staring after Herbert. “Doesn’t seem to like us, does he?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Salles came out of the tent. “Ready?” She looked beautiful. She was wearing a soft felt hat and gray slacks and a tweed coat cut like a man’s. Jay could smell her lilac perfume.

  “If you are,” Bill said.

  They walked to the elephant trail, and at the first bend Jay looked back at the camp. Lew Cable and Herbert were watching them. Jay waved, but they did not answer. The path was soft after the rain, but they made good time. They found the porters had widened the trail to the deserted village in carrying down the gorillas. They rested once before they reached the beehive huts, and they rested again in the village. The climb in the sun had made them warm. They drank some of the beer and then they went past the village into the plantain field.

  “This is where we met them,” Jay said.

  “Were you frightened?” Eve Salles asked.

  “I was petrified.”

  They went through plantain and bamboo, climbing slowly until they came to the edge of the upper forest. Jay took photographs of the forest and the bamboo and then he and Eve Salles helped Bill collect samples of the vegetation. They cut small branches from the trees and pulled up ferns and small plants.

  “I’d no idea the forest was so lovely,” Eve Salles said.

  “It’s lovely until you walk through it,” said Jay.

  “I should imagine. I’ve already got into some nettles. I suppose my face will be a sight. What’s that tree?”

  “Hagenia,” Bill said.

  “It grows pink orchids,” she said. “Isn’t that fine? I wish I had one at home.”

  Bill said, “The orchids are parasites. The real flowers are cinnamon brown.”

  “Those pieces of tissue paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “How disappointing!”

  “In April the flowers look like purple lilies,” Bill said. “Then they dry up.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “It’s my business.”

  “But you don’t talk like a scientist.”

  “That’s because he’s good,” Jay said. “It’s like being a doctor. Only the lousy ones talk like medical dictionaries.”

  “But you talk like Bill, too,” Eve Salles said. “What are you hiding?”

  “A heart of gold,” Bill said.

  They were having a fine time. They felt happy with each other. They went further into the forest. A nettle stung Mrs. Salles and Bill took a sample of it. “Girardinia condensata,” he said.

  “Don’t show off,” Jay said.

  They found some gorilla beds. Jay took photographs of them. Bill was very busy collecting plants, and when they came to an open glade with sunlight they let him go ahead. Jay sat beside Mrs. Salles on a fallen log. Hagenia and wild-rose trees grew around the glade and in the trees were canopies of green and gold moss and from the canopies hung fringes of fern. Yellow flowers grew on the rose trees, and on the moss pink orchids blossomed. Curtains of vines hung from the branches of the trees, almost reaching the silvery tops of wild celery. When the wind blew the whole forest swayed gently.

  “It’s like an enchanted forest,” she said.

  It was a strange part of the forest, Jay thought. There were buttercups in the glade and ten-foot blackberry bushes with lavender blossoms and huge green berries. Trees grew in the forked trunks of other trees and all the branches were twisted into awkward shapes. Many of the branches were dead under the graybeard moss. Around the glade was a green wall of vegetation.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But I’m afraid.”

  Jay said slowly, “It’s like a place where humans aren’t supposed to be.”

  She turned her face to him. “Do you think I’m foolish to feel things like this?”

  “You’re thinking of last night?”

  “Partly.”

  “I was frightened, too,” he said.

  Bill came out of the forest with a sprig of white veronica and three orchids, violet, red and yellow. “A corsage from a wealthy admirer, madam,” he said, giving them to her.

  “I say, they are beautiful.”

  “And look,” Bill said. He showed them a vine with a prickly stem and many pink blossoms. “Don’t touch it.”

  “A nettle?” Jay asked.

  “I think it’s a new species.” Bill was quite excited. “It’s a labiaceae, but an unknown variation. I’m going to name it labiaceae Madame Salles.”

  She smiled at him. “Please do. But name it Eve. I don’t think we need be so formal. Any of us. Even a botanist.”

  “All right,” Bill said, “I’ll name it labiaceae Eve.”

  He gave the vine to them and drank a bottle of beer and went back into the forest. He was having a fine time.

  “I didn’t want to wake Herbert and the others,” Eve Salles said. “But I was frightened. And you were alone.”

  “I’m glad you came.”

  “I’m just worried about what you think.”

  “I don’t think anything,” he said.

  “I’m really not immoral.”

  “You’re doing this talking, you know,” he said. “I haven’t said anything.”

  “And you don’t think I’m immoral? Or crazy?”

  “I think you’re nice and respectable.”

  “You didn’t at first.”

  “That was just an automatic pass.”

  Bill came back with another vine. “Now for some wild celery and we’re done,” he said.

  “Want some help?” Jay asked.

  “No,” Bill said. “You sit with Eve.”

  He went away.

  She said, “You must think it’s queer about Lucien.”

  “People often get lost,” Jay said.

  “No. I mean my attitude.”

  “What about it?” Jay asked.

  “Well, I don’t weep, do I?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t love him.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you,” she said. “But somehow I want to justify myself.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. But I want to.” She was looking down at Bill’s new specie of vine. The sunlight coming through the trees on the slope above them put her face into planes. “I didn’t hate him, either,” she said. “We were married when I was eighteen. He was rich, and my family approved. I’d been in a convent, you know, and I never thought of disobeying. It sounds very old-fashioned, but in Montreal, at least, children are still raised that way.”

  “Other places, too,” he said, thinking suddenly of Linda.

  “He wasn’t cruel. At least not very cruel,” she said. “He was very polite and very superior and very cold and very technical. And we were very rich.”

  “And he was very jealous,” he said.

  “Yes. That was funny. I think it must have been some sort of vanity. He hated to have anyone look at me. That’s how Herbert came into being—to watch me while I waited in Cairo.”

  “Can’t you fire Herbert?”

  “It’s all so complicated,” she said. “I can, but there’s Lucien’s mother. She runs the family. She knows Lucien hired someone to watch me; he wrote her everything. If I get rid of Herbert now, she’ll believe I’ve been unfaithful to Lucien.”

  “Do you care?”

  “There’s an estate. About twelve million francs. French courts are very queer. If she decided to contest my inheritance, I’d have a bad time.”

  “I see,” he said. “Everything but one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Why are you so eager to look for him?”

  “Wouldn’t you want to find out?” she asked. “One way or another?”

  Bill came back. “God, that celery tastes awfull” he said.

  “Can we please go down now?” Eve asked.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE PROFESSOR was definitely ill. He would eat nothing,
and he no longer tried to invent excuses for wanting to lie down. He had a fever. He took quinine, but it did no good. It was not malaria. On the next day they carried him down the mountains and the rolling hills to the road on a litter, wrapped in a blanket and half asleep from the fever. His face was flushed with fever. By dusk, when they reached the trucks, he was vomiting. They were all frightened.

  “Must get him to Bukavu,” Mr. Palmer said.

  It was decided Mr. Palmer and Mulu would take him in the Ford station wagon. The others would load the trucks in the morning, and then follow. They would reach Bukavu by the next night, even with the heavy trucks.

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Palmer told them when the professor had been lifted into the back of the station wagon. “The Belgians have very good doctors.”

  They watched in silence until the station wagon’s taillight faded from sight. A cold wind from the mountains blew on them.

  “Poor old guy,” Bill said.

  They went to bed after dinner. They were tired from the trip down the mountains. In the morning it was cloudy. Cable, with the help of the headman, paid off the porters with Belgian francs from a canvas sack. Each porter got two francs. Nygano and the other pygmies had been given presents and salt before they left the mountains. Jay and Bill supervised the loading of the trucks. One gorilla was to go in each truck, and it was necessary to place the equipment carefully so there would be room, and the work went slowly. During the morning the sun broke through the clouds.

  When the loading was finished Eve came over to them. “How about riding with you chaps?” she asked. She looked very lovely. Her skin was clear and smooth over her jawbone. Her eyes were almost the color of violets in the sun.

  “Gosh, yes!” Bill said.

  She called Herbert and told him to take the professor’s touring car. “You’re coming with me?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He looked at her insolently. “It would be best for you to come.” He was still wearing his blue suit and tan shoes. He had polished the shoes in the night.

  “Don’t argue, Herbert.”

  “I know what’s best,” he said. His pimply face was sullen.

  Bill was suddenly angry. “You heard Mrs. Salles,” he said. “Do as you’re told.”

  Herbert was undecided for a moment. He looked at Eve, but she didn’t say anything. He went to the touring car.

  “He needs a kick in the pants,” Bill said.

  Eve said, “He’s very insolent.”

  Lew Cable had finished paying the porters, but the headman was demanding more money. Juma, the Somali tent boy, was trying to translate for Cable, but whatever he was saying obviously did not satisfy the headman. The headman was a big handsome black with beautiful muscles. He was taller than Cable and he was shouting at him.

  “Tell him I paid what I agreed to pay,” Cable told Juma.

  Juma said something, but the headman would not listen. He waved his arms and shouted at Cable. “The hell with it,” Cable said, turning his back.

  He started towards the trucks, but the headman followed, angry and shouting. Cable looked angry, too. He dropped the canvas bag of francs. Then, as the headman bent over it, he straightened with the bag and the headman went up in the air and sprawled heavily on the road, looking amazed and frightened. Cable had caught his jaw with his elbow. He lay and rubbed his jaw while Cable went on to the truck.

  “Boy! What a punch!” Bill said.

  “Who punched who, Boy Scout?” Cable demanded.

  Jay saw he was pleased with himself. It was remarkable the way he had jolted the headman. He was as strong as a bull. The black was just as big as Cable.

  “You all saw it,” Cable said. “He bumped into my elbow.”

  “He certainly did,” Bill said.

  Cable laughed at Bill’s expression. “I’d like to punch him,” he said. “I’d break his jaw. Are you ready?”

  “Sure,” Bill said.

  “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” Cable asked Eve.

  “Thank you, but I’ve asked Bill and Jay.”

  Cable smiled at her. “Change your mind.” His teeth were very white against his brown skin. “It’s lonely driving alone.”

  “I hadn’t thought.” She looked at Jay. “What do you say?”

  “Go ahead,” Jay said.

  Cable helped her into his truck. He grinned at them. “So long, Boy Scouts.” He started the truck down the road. When it had gone a hundred yards, Eve turned and waved, and they waved back.

  Bill asked, “Why the hell didn’t you keep her?”

  “Comrade,” Jay said, “I don’t want to bump into anybody’s elbow.”

  While they were looking at the Citroën to see if the gorilla was secure, Herbert drove away in the touring car. He didn’t wave to them. The gorilla was under a big tarpaulin. It had been tied from four directions so that it would not move, and the equipment was also tied. Jay got in the truck and tried the engine, but it wouldn’t start. It was the carburetor again. It was full of the red silt. He cleaned the carburetor and stepped on the starter to pump gas through the feed line. Then he put the carburetor back and tried the engine. It ran beautifully. They started out. It was exciting to be on the road again.

  Jay thought about the carburetor. “The Belgians must mix sand in their gas,” he said.

  “That’s the ersatz economy,” Bill said.

  “What is?”

  “Sand in gas,” Bill said. “Herr Gutzman told us. Don’t you remember? Conservation. The more sand, the less gas.”

  “That doesn’t conserve sand,” Jay pointed out.

  “No. Us scientists haven’t got around to that. We’re just conserving gas.”

  “You’re doing fine in the Congo,” Jay admitted.

  “Our next step is synthetic gas. Everything synthetic in the ersatz economy. Synthetic butter. Synthetic silk. Synthetic meat. Synthetic babies. Next synthetic gas.”

  The green trees pressed the road so closely it looked as though they were driving into a blind alley. The trees seemed to be opening up in front of them. It was hot. Jay was glad Bill was feeling good.

  “One thing,” he said, “there won’t be sand in the synthetic gas.”

  “Yes, there will, comrade,” Bill said. “Synthetic sand.”

  “Then to hell with the ersatz economy.”

  “Comrade,” Bill said seriously, “someday everything will be ersatz. This forest will be made of old newspapers and potato peelings. Your suit will be made out of this forest. Your dinner will be made from your old suit.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  “The forest will be filled with ersatz animals. They will be made of the people who do not believe in Hitler.”

  “I hope I’m a lion.”

  Bill’s face changed. “Comrade, I trust there will be no lions.”

  “For God’s sake!” Jay said. “Are you still worried about lions?”

  He wished he hadn’t mentioned them. Bill had been going good. He really hadn’t thought. He hoped Bill wouldn’t begin to worry again.

  “Not so much,” Bill said.

  “That’s good.”

  “I plan to ignore them.”

  “You and me, comrade,” Jay said.

  In half an hour they reached the main highway. There was a metal sign: BUKAVU—113 K. The road was fine now, wide and well graded, but they did not dare go fast because of the gorilla. Around one o’clock they had lunch, eating bread and cheese and drinking beer on the running board in the sun. The country was much more open here, the hills brown with grass, stretching like loaves of bread to the purple mountains on the horizon. Ahead the smoke of Nyamlgira went up into a sky full of high clouds. A wind rattled the tarpaulin over the dead gorilla.

  “Poor old Prof,” Bill said.

  “He’ll be all right.”

  “It’s tough luck, though.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now Cable will probably be in charge.”

  “He’s too b
usy with Eve to bother us,” Jay said.

  “He is making a play.”

  “He’ll probably get her, too.”

  Bill cut a slice of cheese. “What’s wrong with my face?”

  “It’s a fine face.”

  “She never looks at it.”

  “She’s afraid,” Jay said. “That satyr look.”

  “I’ll show her my Sunday-school medal,” Bill said. “Never late in two years.”

  “You can’t miss with that,” Jay admitted.

  “And I can play the mandolin.”

  “You’d better wait until you’re sure Monsieur Salles isn’t coming home.”

  “I don’t mind Monsieur Salles.”

  “You don’t want to get her into trouble, do you?”

  “Comrade,” Bill said, “I do.”

  After lunch Bill drove. The beer and the steady motion of the truck made Jay sleepy. He closed his eyes. When he opened them he was looking at Lake Kivu, blue gray in the afternoon sun. He could see the brown hills rising on the other side of the lake. The road was edging towards the lake.

  “How about driving?” Bill asked.

  He stopped the Citroën. Jay got out and went around to the driver’s seat. “How long was I asleep?” he asked.

  “A couple of hours.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “My eye just got tired.”

  “You should have wakened me.”

  “I’m all right,” Bill said.

  Now they were passing huts and a few banana plantations. There were natives on the road, some dressed and some almost naked. Many of the men carried spears. The lake was to the left, but they could only see it from the crests of hills. They came to a party of road workers, the men in loincloths. They were using picks and shovels and baskets to widen the road. They carried the full baskets of red earth on their heads, clearing the road a basket at a time.

  “Jambo, bwana” a headman called to them.

  “Jambo, m’falme,” Bill replied.

  On the right was the dark mass of Tschibinda, where museum hunters had killed gorillas several years before. A side road ran to the Belgian government’s agricultural station. They met a line of natives, the women walking with sticks, bent over, their backs loaded with cotton. The men had tobacco and bananas on their heads. There were herds of longhorn cattle on the hills. Everywhere the earth was red.