Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  The sleep had not done Jay much good. He felt depressed. It was probably the professor. He hoped he was not very ill. He wondered if it would make any difference in their trip to the Ituri. Would Cable be any worse? He’d just as soon the expedition didn’t go on. He’d go back to New York and get a job. No, he wouldn’t. Everything there would remind him of Linda. He wouldn’t be any good in New York. What the hell use was there in kidding himself? he thought. He was through in New York. He was through in Africa, too. He was through anywhere. Linda had done that. He hated her. No. He loved her. That was worse. He would never love anyone again. What he hated was remembering what he’d done to her.

  He was glad to see Bukavu. He drove through an empty market place. There was a six-sided stone column in the center of the market. Overhead soared black and white vultures looking for refuse. He drove past the shops of the Sociétés Anonymes, shuttered now that it was dusk, the street deserted and silent, and then turned from the business district to the government gites, small cement tourist cottages at the end of a street lined with casuarina trees. He parked the Citroën by the other truck and the Ford station wagon. He did not see the professor’s touring car.

  Juma appeared and showed them the gîte d’étape they were to use. It had been swept clean and two cots had been set up. Bill told Juma to make their beds. Jay got a bottle of beer out of the truck.

  “Want some?” he asked Bill.

  “I’ll see how the professor is first,” Bill said.

  Jay sat on one of the cots and drank the beer while Juma brought in the bedding. He moved to the other cot when Juma finished with it. The gîte was very bare. There was a screen door and two screened windows, the two cots and a chair. The floor was cement. He could hear a cricket on the veranda outside.

  “How’s the professor, Juma?” he asked.

  “Very bad, bwana.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yes, bwana.”

  Juma finished the other bed and went away. Jay opened another bottle of beer and held it in his hands. There were beads of sweat on the glass. He could hear a musical tinkling in the distance. He supposed it was some native instrument. It sounded like a toy piano. He could also hear voices. It was the hour of the evening when the wind died and sounds carried a great distance. It was the sad hour of the evening. He drank the beer slowly, letting the bottle cool his hands. He was through, but at least he had the memory of Linda. That was something. They could not take that away. One year was put away where they could not get at it. Four seasons. Twelve months. He took a long drink of the beer. The bottle was almost empty. One year, so long and so short. There was always a time, he thought, you looked back upon as the best in your life. Often, though, you did not know the time was the best when you were having it. But he had. All that year he had been frightened, knowing it would end, but not knowing how.

  In October the long beach north of Miami was deserted, and they swam naked in the warm blue-clear water. Then the cream-colored sand was hot to lie on, and their wet skin pulled tight under the sun, and they lay half awake, lost and drowsy in the muffled sound of surf, watching the freighters on the horizon, some so far at sea only their smoke showed. Linda’s skin was brown except where her suit had protected her breasts and thighs.

  “Linda” he said, “how long?”

  “Forever” she said.

  “Do you think so really?”

  “I know!”

  “Sometimes I’m afraid!”

  “Darling, it’s going to last forever.”

  He finished the beer and put the bottle on the floor. He lay on the bed, looking at the faint outline of the gîte’s screen door. He tried to lie on the bed without thinking. After a few minutes someone with an electric torch knocked at the door. It was Eve Salles.

  “Were you asleep?” she asked.

  “I guess so.”

  She flashed the torch on him. “Your eyes are funny.”

  “They’re always funny after I’ve slept.”

  She was wearing a skirt and a sweater. She looked more feminine than she had in slacks. “Will you eat with me at the hotel?” she asked. “The others are coming.”

  “I’d like to. What time?”

  “Half an hour.” She stood looking at him. “You’re nor angry with me?”

  “No. Should I be?”

  “It was rather nasty, my standing you and Bill up for Lew Cable.”

  “It was all right.”

  “You know, I do want to keep on his good side. If he doesn’t let me come to the Ituri, I don’t know what I shall do.”

  “He’ll let you,” Jay said.

  “And you’re not angry?”

  “No. I’ll see you at dinner.”

  She smiled. He could see her teeth gleam in the reflected light. He watched her leave. Then he closed the screen door. He lit a lantern and started to look for a clean shirt.

  CHAPTER 12

  IT WAS FINE the next morning. There were no clouds, but a high haze had turned the sky a silver blue. While Bill was at the hospital, Jay walked around the town. The sunlight was bright on the streets and on the brushlike trees and the new brick houses with the colored roofs. He walked to the business district. In one of the Sociétés Anonymes he bought the professor an English translation of Fathers and Sons. It was the only book in English he could find. He remembered it as a fine book, though possibly a little sad for a sick man. Then he went to the hotel for a whisky and soda. The native barman brought it to him on the veranda. He drank it slowly, watching the people on the streets. Many native women, with bundles of cotton, passed the hotel on their way to market. He could see part of the plaza and four street sweepers seated on the cobbles, working sitting down, making circular sweeps with their brooms and then sliding forward a bit on their buttocks. A uniformed asKari went by with a prisoner wearing a brass ring around his neck. A native came and sat on the veranda steps and was driven away by the barman. The street sweepers did not seem to be making much progress. A Belgian official went by in a Chevrolet, scattering a group of the women with cotton bundles. Jay finished his drink and started for the gîte. Halfway there he remembered he had left the book on the hotel veranda. He went back for it.

  He ate lunch with Bill outside the gîte on the reed-roofed veranda. They were served by Juma and the two Totos. Cable had gone with Mr. Palmer to the agricultural station, and no one knew where Eve Salles was. Bill thought she had gone with Mr. Palmer. too.

  “We’re to push along tomorrow,” he said.

  “With old Cable in charge?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s dandy. What about the professor?”

  “He’ll join us when he can.”

  Jay asked, “Have they found out what’s wrong?”

  “Some sort of an intestinal infection.”

  “That’s a damned shame.”

  “It could be a lot worse,” Bill said.

  In the afternoon they found a clear pool below the second falls of the Ruzizi River, the water cold and dark after the rapids. They went swimming. The water numbed them at first and then the blood began to flow and they felt fine. It was fun swimming in the cold water. Then they sunned themselves on a black rock. They were careful not to burn their skin. The altitude made the sun very dangerous. They went back to the gîte and ate dinner alone.

  The next morning they were ready to start at dawn, and everyone was very gloomy. The Ituri Forest seemed far away, and it was cloudy, and they missed the professor. Eve had decided to stay for another day in Bukavu. She had cabled the Salles family in France, telling Lucien’s mother she was starting for the Ituri, and she was waiting for an answer. When Bill went to say good-by to the professor, Jay gave him Fathers and Sons.

  “Tell him to get well quick,” he said.

  They drove all day without passing a town. On the next day they ate lunch in Goma, at the northern end of the lake, and then went on to Rutchuru through a part of the Pare National Albert. The clouds did not bring rain and the ro
ad was good and it was nice driving. Most of the time they kept in sight of the other Citroën. They slept in two gîtes at Rutchuru, and on the third afternoon Eve caught them in the Ford station wagon. Herbert was driving, and she waved at them, but she did not stop. She looked very pretty. The rest of the day they caught glimpses of the Ford ahead of them.

  From Rutchuru the road climbed towards mountains that rose blue and mysterious on the horizon. They passed the ruined fort where the Arab slavers had fought the Belgians. Late that afternoon they came to a sign hidden in a tangle of brush and vines: PARC NATIONAL ALBERT, and climbed a hill and leveled out on a plain of tall grass. The land here was rolling, like the range country of Montana, and there was brush that might have been sage, and blue mountains that might have been the Crazy or the Bearpaw, and the same air, dry and light and heady. Jay saw animals grazing fifty yards from the road, half hidden in a swale of grass. Some of them were gazelles, looking like deer, with round alert ears and soft eyes and high, fast rear quarters, but the others were darker and heavier, with thin ears and short curved horns.

  “What are the big ones?” he asked Bill.

  “Damaliscus.”

  “Are they good to eat?”

  “Not in the Parc, they aren’t,” Bill said.

  Eve had gone to bed that evening when they caught the other Citroën and the Ford. She was tired from having driven in two days a road that had taken them three to cover. Mr. Palmer said she had told them the professor was better. Bill was glad to hear this. She had also received a reply to her cable, Mr. Palmer said. Madame Salles had forbidden her to go into the Ituri.

  “What’s she going to do?” Bill asked.

  “Ignore her, I imagine,” Mr. Palmer said.

  Lew Cable and Mr. Palmer started out first the next morning. Bill and Jay followed. Eve was still asleep. She did not need to hurry anyway. The trucks had to go slowly because of the gorillas, and she could catch them easily. Just before noon Bill and Jay saw Lake Edward far below them on a dry brown plain, the water gray and misty from the heat and, a little later, far ahead, the peak of Ruwenzori, the Great Father, white with snow, bulking high in the pale blue sky.

  After lunch, the road went along a plain that was like a path between the blue mountains and a forest to the west. Bill said this was the start of the Ituri. It was a weird-looking forest. The trees grew close together, forming a green mass of vegetation, and the trunks were hidden by vines and tangled plants. From a distance it looked like a garden of gigantic weeds.

  “I bet it’s full of spiders and snakes,” Bill said.

  Jay thought the Ituri looked like a prehistoric forest. He thought he would not be surprised to see a winged reptile float over the trees with a pygmy in its mouth. In the silent forest was a feeling of mystery and terror. He did not think he was going to like it.

  Later the road climbed away from the forest. Bill opened two bottles of beer. They drank the beer without stopping the truck. They both began to feel better. Jay did not know if it was the beer, or getting away from the Ituri, or the altitude. They passed some native women with naked breasts. Bill waved and the women giggled.

  “Let’s have a party,” Bill said.

  “All right.”

  “Only they’d all go for you,” Bill said.

  “They’re about the best I can do.”

  “No. You do all right.”

  They crossed a stone bridge. In the stream below Jay could see smooth boulders. The water was broken by the boulders. The road was still climbing.

  “Why do I always appeal to older women?” Bill asked.

  “It’s their maternal instinct.”

  “Why can’t I appeal to the maternal instinct in a swell-looking blonde?”

  “Swell-looking blondes have no maternal instinct.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with the world,” Bill said. “Insufficient maternal instinct. That’s why we have wars. Every woman should have maternal instinct. Every woman should love old Bill. Gentlemen, that’s my platform.”

  “Good. Give us a campaign speech.”

  “My friends,” Bill began.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know whether you’re a friend or not.”

  “I’m not,” Jay said. “But go on. That’s the way to begin.”

  “My friends, I propose to end unemployment and eliminate old age,” Bill said. “I propose to make everyone wealthy, grow fine crops, supply heat and light to the country. The Lamont Plan, I call it. Comrade, do you desire happiness and prosperity?”

  “I do, indeed.” Jay grinned at Bill.

  “Then stand back of Honest Bill Lamont.”

  “I’ll stand as far back as I can.”

  “Don’t carp, my friend. Don’t carp and sully. Do you wish to hear the Lamont Plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Compulsory Cremation. That’s the Lamont Plan. Comrade, let us cremate everyone over fifty. Let us return prosperity. No old people. Their places open in industry. Their ashes used to fertilize the soil. Their flames for heat and light. Crematoriums in every city. A building boom. New jobs. No pensions. Less taxes. My friend, have you a parent or two you would sacrifice for your country?”

  “I have three,” Jay said.

  “Good. Gentlemen, this comrade has three parents he will sacrifice.” Bill waved his arms at a passing hillside. “What will you people give? Have any of you parents?”

  The Ford station wagon passed them and halted. Jay stopped the truck. Eve came over to them. She looked slim in gray slacks and her rose-colored sunproof shirt.

  “Hey!” she said, “will you let me ride with you?”

  “Sure,” Bill said. “Climb in.”

  Herbert scowled at them from the station wagon. His skin was pale.

  “Something wrong with the Ford?” Jay asked.

  “No. I’m just tired of it.” Bill let her get between them in the front seat. “Herbert’s not exactly a cheerful companion.”

  Jay started off. Herbert waited in the station wagon. He was going to follow them.

  Bill asked, “The guy hasn’t been annoying you, has he?”

  “Not more than usual,” Eve said.

  “We’ll do away with him, if you like.”

  “I think that would be fine.”

  “Bill’s got the blood lust,” Jay said. “He’s planning to cremate all people over fifty. And now he’s going to kill Herbert.”

  “It’s simple,” Bill said. “We’ll kill him and put him out where the lions can eat him.”

  “I’m afraid they wouldn’t,” Eve said. “He’s so little meat.”

  “Wouldn’t a very small lion?”

  “Perhaps,” said Eve doubtfully.

  “Sure he would,” Bill said. “Come on, Jay, let’s kill him. Stop the truck.”

  “Your friend is murderous,” Eve said.

  “It’s the blood lust,” Jay said. “I told you.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “Give him some beer,” Jay said.

  Eve got three of the big bottles of beer out of the cardboard container. They drank as the truck followed a winding road through foothills that led to the blue mountains ahead. There were many curves and many arched stone bridges over streams. There were grass and thorn trees on the foothills. Once they saw some animals feeding on the crest of a hill. There were six of them, their bodies gray against the sky. They looked as though they had two pairs of ears, their horns were so short. Bill didn’t know what they were. They lost the animals when the road dipped, and when it climbed another hill they looked back but could not see them.

  Jay thought it was nice having Eve along. She was lovely to look at. Her husky voice was nice. She made the trip seem like a holiday ride in the country.

  “May I ask you something?” she asked Bill.

  “Anything, lady,” Bill said.

  “You’re going to the Ituri for okapis, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you want them? Why
are they so valuable?”

  “They’re rare.”

  “Is that why you want them?”

  “No. We want to study one.”

  “But why?”

  “To see what goes on inside.”

  “What good will come of that?”

  “The theory is, the more you know about animals, the more you know about man.”

  “Oh, yes,” Eve said. “But why not take guinea pigs? Or horses?”

  “We do. But the okapi is interesting because it is a sort of living fossil.”

  “That sounds ghastly!”

  “It’s not. The okapi’s a beautiful animal, half giraffe, half zebra. He’s important because he’s a living bridge to prehistoric times. To catch one is like finding a cave man in a block of ice and being able to thaw him out.”

  “You make him sound very exciting,” Eve said.

  “He is exciting.”

  “How will you catch one?”

  Bill didn’t have time to answer. Ahead on a hill, under a clump of thorn trees, Jay caught sight of four lions. He braked the truck and pointed them out to the others. The lions were lying in the shade of the thorn trees. There was a big dark-maned male and a smaller male and two females. They were watching the truck. A patch of sunlight made the coat of one of the females sulphur yellow.

  “God!” Bill said.

  Jay felt a surge of excitement. He let the truck slide along the road until the belly of the hill cut them off from the lions. Then he shut off the motor.

  “How about it, Bill?” he asked.

  “Four of them?”

  “Why not?”

  Bill looked sick. “All right,” he said.

  Jay gave Bill the double-barreled Mannlicher and a handful of solid shot. He took the Springfield.

  “Are you really going?” Eve asked.

  “Sure.”

  Bill asked, “What if they all charge?”

  “They won’t.”

  “What do you know about lions?”