Ghosts of the Past

by Tony Park

  Lili unzipped her daypack and took out the sheaf of photocopied pages. The extra money Nick was paying her to translate came in handy for partying. Lili found the spot she was up to and started to read.

  The eastern Transvaal, South Africa, 1902

  Blake rode slowly, sparing Bluey, as there were once more two of them on the horse’s back, along with their meagre possessions.

  Claire had dressed in her soaking clothes, and though she started off by gripping the rear of the saddle to steady herself as they rode, she eventually put her arms around his waist. It was only sensible. Her riding clothes were sodden and, as the afternoon breeze picked up, she huddled closer into his back for warmth. He found himself enjoying the heat of her body through his shirt.

  ‘Let’s stop,’ Blake said. ‘We’ll chance a fire.’

  ‘Not on my account,’ she said. ‘I know it’s risky.’

  He ran a hand down his face. ‘Then on my account. I’m knackered.’

  A lion called in the distance, its two-part grunt managing to sound mournful and terrifying at the same time. The bloody things were everywhere in this part of the country.

  ‘I’ve heard tell that sound carries for several miles,’ Claire said casually, although Blake could hear the uncertainty in her tone.

  Blake dismounted, tethered Bluey to a tree and unstrapped the bedroll from the saddle. ‘Depends on the countryside. Sound doesn’t travel too far in this thick bushveld. That fella’s probably close, no more than half a mile at most.’

  Claire shivered. Blake gathered some leaves and twigs and Claire fossicked for dead wood. Blake knelt, struck a flint, and coaxed a flame with his breath.

  Claire set down the fuel she had collected. ‘Will the fire help?’

  ‘Keep him away? Maybe. It won’t hurt. Don’t stray far; you might not come back.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re very reassuring.’

  He placed the wood on the flame and, once it caught, stood to admire his handiwork and warm his hands. ‘What we need is a bottle of rum.’

  Claire wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I’m cold.’ Blake unfurled the blanket from the bedroll and tossed it to her. She caught it and wrapped it around herself. ‘I can’t . . . stop . . . shivering.’

  ‘Get out of those damp clothes,’ Blake ordered. ‘You’re wetting the blanket as well. You’ll never get warm that way.’ He turned around. ‘Tell me when you’re ready.’

  ‘I’m decent,’ she said, after a few moments.

  Blake smiled for the first time since the river crossing. God, but she did look beautiful, with her hair in disarray and just a glimpse of pale shoulder showing from under the blanket she was wrapped in. Claire stared into the fire.

  He was starting to feel the cold as well, his back damp and chilly from where she had been pressed against him. He rolled down his sleeves and did up his top button. He searched for some more dry wood and fed the fire.

  ‘That was brave of you, to dive into the river to help me,’ she said. ‘Brave, but stupid.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Why stupid?’

  ‘You don’t need me to get where you’re going.’

  ‘I need you to help clear my name,’ he said.

  ‘But you risked your life to save a virtual stranger. I don’t know that I would have done the same thing in your shoes.’

  ‘War makes you do some stupid things. In my army we’d rather die than run away and leave a man in danger.’

  ‘Ah, so that makes me an honorary man now, does it? Men. That’s why so many of you never come home from wars. Brave, but stupid. Women are smarter, you know?’

  ‘More ruthless, you mean?’

  She pondered the comment a while. ‘Some people would think we’re too soft, the fairer sex and all that rot, but yes, I’d probably agree with you. I don’t think we do things out of some false notion of fair play. We protect our own, like a lioness would, but we keep our eye on the mission, on the way ahead. Also, we rarely get to fight in proper armies, so history hasn’t shown how we’d act in a military situation, other than the likes of Joan of Arc and Boudica, and they fared quite well by all accounts.’

  Blake stared into the fire and nodded. It was an interesting choice of words – mission – that she had just referred to. ‘So, are you a fighter, Miss Martin?’

  ‘If I fight, it’s for peace.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like those two words go together too easy.’

  ‘Of course they do. Like love and hate, fire and ice, night and day. You can’t have one without the other. God, I could use some brandy right now, I’m still freezing.’

  Blake stoked the fire, but he, too, was shivering now. ‘We can’t keep this going all night, you know, there are Boer and Brit patrols all through this valley. We’re too close to Komatipoort.’

  Claire reached across to the rock where she had draped her wet clothes. In doing so she exposed a slender arm and the swell of the top of her right breast. ‘The clothes are still cold. They’re starting to get a dew on them, as well.’

  ‘Best roll up in that blanket and get some sleep, then.’

  ‘What about you?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Claire lay down and rolled onto one side so she was facing away from Blake, then flicked one side of the blanket away from her.

  He stared at the smoothness of her back, the skin glowing pale gold in the firelight; his gaze followed the swell of her hips and the top of the cleft of her buttocks. ‘Hurry, Mr Blake, it’s cold, but don’t get any ideas. Keep your clothes on and we shall both survive the night.’

  He lowered himself to the blanket and now that he was there Blake didn’t want to move away from the warmth of her back, nor put his arm between them. Instead, he slowly reached over her body, drawing her into an embrace.

  She shivered against his body. ‘I’m still cold.’

  ‘You can wear my shirt.’

  His desire for her was growing, literally, as he lay there, and he didn’t want her having to slap him when she felt him. He rolled onto his back and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to hold me then I’ll take you up on your offer of another layer.’ She turned over and looked at him. He fumbled with one of the buttons. ‘Let me do that.’

  He lowered his hands and felt her fingers brush the hair on his chest as she undid it. She moved on to the next button, unbidden, looking at what she was doing, not at his eyes.

  ‘You would have died for me, Blake, in the river?’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Right now, I reckon I’d do just about anything for you,’ he said. He reached out, slowly, with his hand, like he might to a wild creature, not wanting to spook it. She didn’t flinch and as the back of his hand, his fingers, caressed her cheek, she kept her eyes on him, but didn’t move. ‘So soft,’ he said. She gave an almost imperceptible nod, so he continued. ‘This place, Africa, it can fill your head with visions of natural beauty that you wouldn’t think possible and then the next minute you’ll come across a burning farm or the bloody aftermath of a gunfight. What’s missing is this, something tender.’

  ‘You may be talking to the wrong woman if it’s tenderness you’re after, Sergeant Blake.’

  She smiled, but she licked her lips as well, betraying her nerves. He wondered if she could hear his heart. Blake moved his hand, slowly again, so as not to startle her or break the moment, until his fingers were behind her neck. He started to draw her to him and she shifted. For a moment he thought he’d gone too far, but then she was on him.

  Blake rolled with her and their mouths came together. She ran her fingers under his shirt, up and down his back as he drew her to him, no longer embarrassed by his lust. She pressed her naked body against him then reached between them to unbutton his trousers. The night air was so cold that she pulled the blanket over them, so tha
t not even the firelight could guide them. It was fingers and palms, mouths and lips that did the exploring as she helped him slide out of his pants. They laughed as they fumbled until he found the place that was as slick as moss on a polished river rock and as hot and wet as a Transvaal summer.

  The lion called again in the distance and the excitement of it seemed to spur her on, rather than make her look about. They were lost to the sensations as he entered her, as she grabbed him, as he drove and she rode. Her body was lean and strong beneath that soft pale skin and she met his strength with a force of her own. At one point she bit him, as he’d once seen a lioness do to her mate, and the short sharp jolt sent him over the edge.

  Blake looked up at her, red hair glowing like the flames behind her, the stars framing her face as she gasped for air.

  He drew her to him and wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘I would die for you.’

  Chapter 25

  Skukuza Rest Camp, Kruger National Park, the present day

  Nick made it through the gates of Skukuza with three minutes to spare. Just a few kilometres short of the camp he and three other cars had been bailed up by a big bull elephant, who then took it upon himself to lead them towards the camp in a frustratingly slow conga line for a quarter of an hour. He stopped by the camp store and bought some more provisions and a bag of firewood.

  When Nick arrived at his rondavel he was greeted by a stern-faced man in national parks uniform, and a cleaner slopping soapy water out of his room onto the verandah.

  ‘Hello, how are you?’ the man said without much feeling.

  ‘Fine, thanks, and you?’ Nick said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Baboons. You must have left your window open.’

  ‘No way. I read the sign and I made sure I closed and locked all the windows and the doors.’

  ‘It is easy to miss one window, and that is all it takes. I will show you.’

  Nick stepped over the bucket and felt bad at the dirty marks his shoes left on the still wet, freshly cleaned floor as he followed the parks man inside.

  ‘See here, how they have bent the metal frame of the window?’

  Nick stepped closer and saw how one of the panes of glass was missing, presumably swept up now by the cleaner.

  ‘The baboons grab it,’ the man demonstrated, ‘if it has been left open enough for them to get their fingers in. Then they bend it until the glass breaks.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t leave it open.’

  The man nodded slowly and smiled, as if implying: That’s what they all say.

  Nick was annoyed, not only that the man didn’t believe him, but that the baboons seemed to have ransacked his bag. His clothes and belongings had been heaped on the bed.

  ‘You are lucky,’ the man said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘They usually shit everywhere. These ones must have been disturbed before they could do their dirty business.’ He laughed.

  Nick felt uneasy. Sure, some baboons could have found some canny way to get in, but the theft of Anja’s research and Susan’s cryptic warning were preying on his mind. When the man had left and the woman had finished cleaning he surveyed the room and went through his clothes, folding and sorting. He didn’t seem to be missing anything and he repacked, now wondering if he was being overly paranoid. To calm himself he went back outside and drew on some nearly forgotten boy scout and camping holiday skills to light a fire. He remembered a rainy weekend in a borrowed tent on the New South Wales south coast with Jill, not long after they had met, him trying and failing to coax a flame out of sodden wood and damp paper. The memory saddened and unsettled him again.

  At least this fire had crackled nicely to life. Nick got himself a beer out of the fridge and took another look inside the rondavel. What he could not see, on the polished concrete floor or the bedspread or the window ledge or walls was any sign that any baboon or monkey had been inside. There were no dirty hand or footprints, no scuffs, and, as the national parks guy had pointed out, no smelly calling cards. He wondered if a human could have been rummaging through his possessions and left the mess and open window to make it look like primates were responsible.

  Nick took out his phone and thought more about the men who had assaulted and threatened Anja. He didn’t know why an academic’s papers could be so valuable, but it certainly seemed as if that was what the thieves had been after. Susan had told him to be careful, but was there something she hadn’t told him?

  He checked his watch and did the calculation; it was two in the morning in Sydney. He thought about his aunt, Sheila. He didn’t want to worry her needlessly, but the story of Anja’s robbery played on his mind.

  Nick got another beer, took out his laptop, sat down and turned it on. He thought about Anja Berghoff. He had been annoyed at her initial rudeness, but after talking to her he felt for her, having endured a robbery and assault and losing all her research material.

  He decided to bring Anja into the loop. He found her new email address that she had sent him, then emailed a scan of the original manuscript to her, along with Lili’s translations to date.

  Next he went to Facebook. His aunt was addicted to the social media platform. He opened the messenger box and saw that despite the late hour the green dot next to her profile picture was illuminated. He clicked on her and the dialogue box from their last chat opened. He saw that she had been on just five minutes earlier.

  Hi Aunty, are you awake? He typed.

  The rippling dots next to her name told him she was typing a message. Unfortunately yes, bit of a drama at home.

  Nick closed down Facebook on the computer, picked up his phone and put through a voice call on messenger.

  ‘Hello?’ Sheila said.

  ‘Aunty, is everything OK? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ she said.

  Nick’s tummy lurched. ‘What’s wrong.’

  ‘Well I’m fine – I’m at the caravan at Norah Head.’ Sheila kept the van at a park on the New South Wales north coast. ‘But I got a call from my neighbour, Russell, a couple of hours ago saying my house had been broken into.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Exactly. Russell was coming home from the pub, half pissed, and noticed the side window was open. He heard noises inside and called the cops. He waited outside, watching my place, and saw the burglar leaving. He tried to stop him but the guy king hit him in the face. The police arrived and called an ambulance – Russell’s got a broken nose – but the robber was long gone.’

  ‘Did they take anything?’

  ‘Funny,’ Sheila said, ‘Russell’s wife Bev checked the house for me when she got back from the hospital just a little while ago. Bev said the burglar had turned the place upside down, but the TV’s still there. Russell said the guy wasn’t carrying anything, so maybe he got spooked.’

  ‘How about all your family tree stuff?’

  Sheila snorted. ‘The bastard trashed my filing cabinet. Bev said there was paper all over the study floor, ankle deep she reckoned.’

  ‘The manuscript?’

  ‘Got that with me,’ Sheila said. ‘Your parcel arrived just as I left for the coast. Why do you ask?’

  Nick exhaled. ‘I hate to sound paranoid, but I think that might have been what the crook was after. A German woman researching the same stuff was held at gunpoint here in Africa and forced to give over all her documents and passwords, and my bungalow here in the Kruger Park was trashed today. The rangers here reckoned it was baboons, but I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Over old documents? Really? Why?’

  ‘No idea,’ Nick said. ‘I can’t think what would be in this stuff that would be so valuable, but I’m going to try and find out. Meanwhile I think you need to be careful. Tell the cops what I’ve told you.’

  ‘They’ll think I’m crazy,’ she sa
id.

  ‘Maybe, but I’m worried about you.’

  ‘What about the girl who was doing the translation for you?’

  ‘Lili.’ Nick had been thinking the same thing. ‘She’s my next call.’

  Newtown, Sydney, the present day

  Lili’s phone rang.

  She had just got off the train at Newtown. The suburb’s vibrant nightlife was buzzing around her; the area was popular with students, hipsters and late-night partygoers. She ducked into the alcove of a small apartment block to partly shield the call from traffic noise and the sound of live music coming from the pub next door.

  ‘Hello!’

  ‘Lili, hi, it’s Nick.’

  ‘Hello, who is calling please? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Lili, it’s Nick!’

  ‘Nick? Are you in Africa? I finished work today, no more time in the salt mine as you called it –’

  ‘Lili, please, listen to me. Are you OK? Is everything all right? Has anything unusual happened?’

  She thought about the question, her mind slow to process it, even though she had worked out that her English was even more fluent after she’d had a few drinks. ‘Unusual? No, only this phone call. And my internship was always going to finish today. I had hoped that Pippa might keep me on, but now I suppose I have to go and pick fruit in the middle of nowhere or –’

  ‘Lili, do you have the manuscript with you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I have the copy you gave me in a folder. I was just doing some reading on the train.’

  ‘Has anything happened at your share house in Enmore or wherever it is?’

  ‘Newtown. All is fine, thank you for asking, but what is your interest, Nick?’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Nearly home.’

  ‘Do me a favour, please. I know this will sound crazy, but please just call one of your flatmates and ask them if everything is all right at your house.’

  ‘It’s Friday night, Nick.’ Lili laughed. ‘Most probably they are all out partying.’

  ‘This is serious, Lili.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean “if everything is all right”? You’re being weird, Nick.’ She started walking. ‘I am nearly home in any case.’