Dark Memory

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Good-by, Daphne,” Jay said.

  Lady Faulkener looked startled. She did not reply. The Bentley started up. Jay grinned. No race could be as objectionable as the English, he thought. Or as nice. Holmstrom went by in the station wagon. He waved to Jay. The lorries went by. Most of the natives ran after the safari. The native women ran, too; laughing and calling to the Swahili boys. The Belgians went back to their offices. On the hotel veranda Jay met Eve and the priest. Lew Cable had left them. Eve introduced Jay to the priest. The priest’s name was Father Andre.

  “I feel as though I were an old friend of Mrs. Salles,” the priest said in English to Jay. “I grew to know her husband well during his stay in Lubero. He came twice to mass in our little church and at night we had many talks.”

  “That must have been pleasant,” Jay said. He did not feel at ease with the priest.

  Father Andryé had a smooth, dead-white skin and very black eyes. His heavy eyebrows met over his nose. He did not look old, but there was already the authority of the church in his face. “I have informed Madame,” he said, “that I still have hope of her husband.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  He knew the Ituri well, the priest said. He had been in it many times. The forest was no worse than others. There was certainly no danger from the pygmies. They were very shy. They would not harm a white man. Lucien Salles had gone far into the tabu zone, the priest believed, and his guides had deserted him. He was probably living in a pygmy village. In their talks he had expressed a desire to study a pygmy tribe that had never come into contact with whites. Did not Mr. Nichols think he might be living in such a village?

  Jay said it was very possible. Lew Cable came out of the hotel with Bill. He came over to Eve. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d no idea you’d be so quick.”

  “Are you ready?” Cable asked.

  “We’re taking a drive, Father,” Eve explained.

  “Will I see you tonight?” the priest asked.

  “Oh, yes. We don’t leave until morning.”

  Lew Cable took Eve’s arm and led her down the wooden stairs. Bill watched them. Father Andre nodded to Jay and went in the hotel. His skirt swished with his footsteps. Jay wondered if he really believed Lucien Salles was alive. Or was it just professional optimism? He did not know much about priests. Still, Eve was a Catholic. What a priest said would carry weight with her. It had not seemed to make her happy, though.

  Bill was still watching Eve. “Lew’s certainly getting possessive,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “But one of these days she’ll knock his ears off.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure she will, comrade.”

  “I don’t know,” Jay said. “Don’t forget he’s her only chance of finding her husband.”

  “That’s so.” Bill stared at the street for a long time. “It’s a hell of a dirty world at times, isn’t it, comrade?”

  “Let’s have a drink,” Jay said.

  CHAPTER 18

  IT WAS HOT AND DAMP in the Ituri. Swamp grass covered the trail they were following with Monsieur Delage’s hundred porters, but the earth below the grass was very soft. It made walking hard. Dark clouds hid the sky and it was dark and silent in the forest. The porters talked a great deal, but the trees and the heavy, just-before-the-thunderstorm air muffled their voices. Everywhere was the smell of wet vegetation. Lucien Salles’s base camp, where they were to stop, was three miles away. They had already come four miles from the Lubero–Beni road, walking about one mile an hour.

  After lunch Lew Cable went ahead with Mr. Palmer and the pygmy guides, and Jay found himself behind Eve. He noticed that she walked well. She did not walk like a man, with the rangy stride athletic women affect, but neither was there exaggeration in the movement of her buttocks. She had a nice body and she used it nicely. He wondered how she felt. What did she expect to learn at her husband’s camp? Did she really want to find him alive? How did she feel about Lew Cable? Cable wanted her; did she want Cable? He was handsome. It was quite possible.

  Eve looked back and smiled at him. “Walk up here with me.”

  He came up closer. “Isn’t this depressing?” she asked.

  “Very.”

  “It’s so humid,” she said. “I almost wish I hadn’t come.”

  “You’re not going to let a little humidity scare you?”

  “It isn’t that.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s everyone. The English. The Belgians. Everyone thinks I want to find Lucien dead. So I can have his money.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Yes. Everyone does. They think I married him for money. That’s why they’re so persistent. They think I should be easy.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You don’t count.”

  “Sure,” Jay said. “I know that.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t exactly mean that. But you can’t help me. And I’m tired of being chased like a bitch in heat by those who can.”

  Jay wondered what had happened to make her so bitter. Monsieur Delage and two other Belgians had come to the place on the Lubero–Beni road where they had met the porters, but they had had no chance to talk to her alone. Eve didn’t say anything more. He followed her a while and then Lew Cable came back. Jay went ahead to Mr. Palmer. He did not see the pygmies. “Where’re the guides?” he asked.

  “Around. They’re very clever. Slip along without a sound.”

  Now, because he was ahead of the porters, Jay could hear some of the Ituri noises. Branches were being broken by some animal to the right and there was a rustle of leaves ahead. The floor of the forest was uneven and they passed over hills that they could not see because of the trees. They forded a small stream with a muddy bed. Upstream something splashed. Suddenly two of the guides were walking in front of Mr. Palmer.

  “Like shadows,” Mr. Palmer said.

  The pygmies were speaking in whispers. One of them was an old man with a wrinkled body and a beard. The other, Mr. Palmer thought, was his son. They both wore loincloths of purple-dyed bark and had bright feathers in their hair. There was gray paint on their bodies. The father carried a spear and the son carried a small bow and a packet of tiny arrows that must have been made of reeds. Jay wondered if the tips were poisoned. Their bodies were beautifully muscled, but they were smaller than the Batwa pygmies of the gorilla country. Around their necks hung small wooden whistles.

  There was a crash in the underbrush and Mr. Palmer swung his gun to his shoulder. The noise died away.

  “M’boko” said the father.

  “A buff,” Mr. Palmer translated. “I hope the beggar doesn’t charge us.”

  About three o’clock the sky cleared a little. The light brought out some of the color in the forest. The different greens of trees, underbrush, grass and vines became apparent. Jay could see fruits and flowers beside the trail. Everywhere were purple and white orchids. He could hear birds and insects. A cloud of insects followed them. The trail had widened a little and where the surface was bare many animals had left prints. Jay recognized the marks of buffaloes and leopards and the round, water-filled holes left by the elephants, but there was one print he did not know. It was of a cloven hoof with hooked points.

  “New to me,” Mr. Palmer said, bending over the print. “Something like a giraffe.”

  They both knelt beside it. The pygmies came back to them. The mark was quite deep.

  “Okwapi,” said the father.

  Mr. Palmer went on with the pygmies. Jay looked at the print, memorizing it. It gave him a feeling of excitement, but there was none of the shock of a gorilla spoor. It was just the track of a different kind of game. He knew vaguely what an okapi looked like; he remembered having seen a picture of one somewhere. It was an Egyptian-looking creature, like the awkward animals the Pharaohs had carved on their thrones.

  Before dusk they came to the clearing Lucien Salles
had used as his base. The camp was in bad shape. The two tents had fallen and rain had turned the porters’ huts to heaps of twigs and leaves, but a cache of canned goods and other supplies was untouched. Mr. Palmer made the porters clean the camp. They raised the fallen tents and put up the dining tent and two others and built fires. Then they built new huts. The fires made the camp less dismal. The two Totos and the cook began dinner.

  “A drink?” Mr. Palmer asked Jay.

  “Hadn’t we better wait for Lew Cable?”

  “Have one with him, too.”

  Mulu set up camp chairs by the fire in front of the dining tent and brought them whisky and lemon squash. Jay discovered he was tired. His legs were sore from walking on the soft trail. More porters came into camp, dropping their loads by the big dining tent. Their talking filled the clearing. They drank and then Mr. Palmer lifted the whisky bottle. “Another peg?”

  Jay took the bottle, poured a drink and gave it back to Mr. Palmer.

  “I don’t envy that girl,” Mr. Palmer said.

  “Eve?”

  “Yes.”

  “She wanted to come.”

  “I know. But it’s like going to the morgue to identify a relative. The last bloody place her husband was known to be. A bit harrowing, you know.”

  “She won’t make trouble.”

  “She has put up a good show.” Mr. Palmer took a long drink. “A plucky piece.” He stared at the fire. “Wouldn’t mind being twenty years younger.”

  Jay looked at him. Mr. Palmer’s face was red and healthy; his blue eyes were clear. It was impossible to tell how old he was from his body. He was a stocky man, and even when he was young he probably hadn’t had the supple lines of youth, but he was not fat. “You’re just a young blade,” Jay said.

  Mr. Palmer’s teeth gleamed in the firelight. “Some of the wives I’ve taken on safari have thought so. Bloody strange people, wives. But she doesn’t like me.”

  “Sure she does.”

  “Oh, yes; in that way. I’m good-natured and useful. But that’s all.”

  “Do you care?”

  “She’s rather beautiful.” Mr. Palmer looked into the fire, then asked, “One more?”

  “I don’t mind.” Jay felt a little drunk. The whisky hit him hard after exercise. He poured some into the cup and diluted it with the lemon squash.

  “Might have cared a few years ago,” Mr. Palmer said, taking the bottle. “Especially off in the wilderness. Curious effect on people, you know. The wilderness, I mean.”

  “How does it affect them?”

  “Brings out the primitive. One’s braver, or more cowardly. Makes one greedy, too. Instinct for survival working, I suppose. Once I saw a man kill another over a pot of marmalade. Really. Of course, marmalade was devilish important before they tinned fruit juices.”

  Jay said, “I’m not going to kill anybody over a can of orange juice.”

  “No,” Mr. Palmer agreed, pouring himself a drink. “But there’re other things.”

  “What?”

  “There’re women.”

  “Yes, there’re women,” Jay said.

  Mr. Palmer’s slate-blue eyes had no expression in them. “Cable is likely to be troublesome.”

  “Not with me.”

  “You’re quite sure, laddybucks?”

  “I’ve had all the survival I want,” Jay said.

  When they finished their drinks Jay went to his tent to wash. Juma brought him a canvas pail of hot water and a towel. As he was soaping his face Eve and Lew Cable arrived. He could hear their voices in the clearing. He wondered if Mr. Palmer was seriously considering the possibility of a fight between him and Cable. It wasn’t possible. He hadn’t been after Eve. She was Cable’s quarry. He took off his shirt and soaped his chest. Unless Mr. Palmer was interested himself and was sounding out possible opposition. Hell! That wasn’t possible either. It was funny how things lost their perspective when people were thrown together away from other people. Mr. Palmer was a guide. It was his business not to get into trouble. Otherwise there would be inquiries at Nairobi. Well, to hell with it.

  He was drying himself when Bill walked into the tent. Bill looked tired and his clothes were muddy. “What a hell of a walk,” he said.

  Jay hung the towel on the back of a folding camp chair and took the pail of dirty water around the tent and threw the water in the undergrowth. The sun was down and he could see a star in a corner of the sky. The remainder of the sky was dark and it was hard to determine where the sky stopped and the trees began. He went back into the tent. Bill was sitting on the bed. Juma brought another pail of hot water and took Jay’s pail away.

  “That damned Lew Cable,” Bill said.

  “What’s he done?”

  “I overheard him talking to Eve.”

  “About what?”

  “Somebody ought to shoot the son of a bitch.”

  “Go on. Tell me. Don’t be mysterious.”

  “It was the old proposition,” Bill said. “He’d have the expedition look for her husband if she’d sleep with him. Otherwise be couldn’t allow a search.”

  “As blunt as that?”

  “It was one of those we’re-both-people-of-rtie-worid talks.”

  “How’d you happen to hear it?”

  “I’d stepped off the path to look at an orchid. A new variety, I think. Green and gold. They halted about ten feet from me.”

  “That was fortunate.”

  Bill got off the bed. He went to the pail of water and soaped his face and hands.

  “What did Eve say?” Jay asked.

  “Took it very calmly. Asked him if fee wanted her without love. Lew said he didn’t give a damn, just as long as he had her. Put on a great show. Told her he’d have her if he had to break into her tent and rape her.”

  “That’s an idea,” Jay said.

  “Then the bastard tried to kiss her and I walked out of the forest. Pretended I hadn’t heard them. Don’t know what they thought.”

  Jay didn’t know what they could do. He wasn’t as angry about it as Bill. Maybe because he hadn’t heard the conversation. Eve had wanted to come with them. That meant she was ready to take whatever risks coming entailed. And that was why she’d been so upset on the trail. They could probably keep Cable from raping her, and anyway he wouldn’t do that. And there was Herbert. But if she wanted to give herself to Cable so a search for her husband would be made, they couldn’t help it.

  Bill rinsed off the soap. “Think I’ll shave,” he said. “You go on.”

  Jay went to the fire in front of the dining tent. Two of the boys were rigging up mosquito netting in front of the tent. Insects swarmed around Jay’s head. He beat them away and went into the tent. Lew Cable was sitting there. Only four places had been set at the table. “Where’s Eve?” Jay asked.

  “Eating in her tent.”

  “Isn’t she well?”

  “I told her she’d better. She’s under an emotional strain.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t be a fool, Jay,” Cable said. “Her husband’s camp. And the jungle where his body lies.”

  “Has she had a drink?”

  “No,” Cable said. “She’d better not have one.”

  Jay poured whisky into a paper container.

  “Leave her alone,” Cable said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I say so.”

  Jay mixed lemon squash with the whisky. In the light of the safari lantern he could see Cable’s scowling face, the jaw thrust out, the eyes angry. Jay stood up. Cable did not move. He could not decide what to do. Jay went across the clearing to Eve’s tent.

  “Eve,” he called.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Jay. Would you like a drink?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was throaty. “Will you come in?”

  He beat off the insects and ducked under the mosquito netting. Eve was sitting on the cot, lighting a cigarette. She had been crying. She looked beautiful and sad. He gave her the
whisky.

  “Drink it.”

  “Do you think I should?”

  “I’ve had three,” he said.

  She tasted the drink. “I don’t know why I’m being such a fool.”

  “It’s a gloomy place.”

  “Yes. And suddenly everyone’s so queer.”

  “That’s your imagination.”

  “I don’t know. Nobody spoke to me when I arrived. And Lew told me I’d better stay in my tent for dinner.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “Of course not.”

  Good old Cable, Jay thought. The four-letter man from Georgia Tech or wherever it was. “Drink your drink,” he said. “Then we’ll go to dinner.”

  “Do you think it will be all right?”

  “Absolutely. I was sent to find you. Mr. Palmer missed you. Bill missed you. I missed you.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she said. “But I believe you implicitly.”

  “Mulu missed you, too.”

  “Oh, I know he did.”

  “Come on.”

  She put on lipstick and dusted powder around her eyes and they went out of the tent. Herbert was standing outside. He had a handkerchief tied around his face to keep off the insects.

  “What are you doing?” Eve asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’d best keep inside a net.”

  Herbert didn’t move. Jay couldn’t see his face. He didn’t need to. He knew it was sullen. They left him standing by Eve’s tent and walked across the clearing. “Poor chap,” Eve said.

  They went into the dining tent. Bill and Mr. Palmer were there. Lew Cable stared angrily at Jay.

  “Eve’s decided to eat with us after all,” Jay said.

  “Good.” Mr. Palmer called through the netting, “The mem sahib will eat, Mulu.”

  “Yes, bwana.”

  Bill poured a drink. “Have one, Eve?” he asked.

  “Let’s all have one,” Mr. Palmer said.

  Cable did not drink with them. He sat out of the circle of light thrown by the lantern and watched Jay. All through dinner he watched Jay. When they were through he got up from the table and went to bed. After a few minutes they all went to bed.

  CHAPTER 19

  IN THE MORNING, at daybreak, they were awakened by the cries of monkeys. The trees were full of colubus monkeys with fine coats of black and white fur. The monkeys were curious about the camp and the people in it and made a great deal of noise discussing the invasion. Jay ate breakfast with Bill. Then Bill took fifty of the porters and two guides and left for more supplies from the trucks.