The Seventh Scroll tes-2

by Wilbur Smith

  The aircraft banked into its descent and Tessay pointed over the

  starboard wingtip.

  "Lake Tana," she told them. It was a wide and lovely body of water, over

  fifty miles long, studded with islands on each of which stood a

  monastery or an ancient church. As they dropped in over the water on the

  final approach, they could make out the white-robed priests plying

  between the islands on their traditional little boats made from bundles

  of papyrus.

  The Otter touched down on the dirt strip beside the lake and rolled out

  in a long trailing cloud of dust. It swung in -and stopped engines

  beside the run-down terminal building of thatch and daub.

  The sunlight was so bright that Nicholas pulled a pair of sunglasses

  from the breast pocket of his khaki jacket and placed them on his nose

  as he stood at the top of the boarding ladder. He took in the pock-marks

  of bullets and shrapnel on the dirty white walls of the terminal, and

  the burnt'out hull of a Russian T35 battle tank standing in the grass on

  the verge of the runway. The' barrel of its turret gun pointed

  earthwards, and grass had grown up between the rusted tracks.

  The other passengers pushed forward impatiently behind him, jostling him

  and jabbering with excitement as they saw friends and relatives waiting

  to greet them under the eucalyptus trees that shaded the building. There

  was only one vehicle parked out there, a sand-coloured Toyota Land

  Cruiser. The roundel on the driver's do6r had at its centre the painted

  head of a mountain nyala, with long corkscrew horns, and in a ribbon

  below it the title "Wild Chase Safaris'. A white man lounged behind the

  wheel.

  As Nicholas came down the ladder behind the two women, the driver

  slipped out of the truck and strode out on to the strip to meet them. He

  was dressed in a faded khaki bush suit, and he was tall and lean and

  walked with a spring to his step.

  "Fortyish," Nicholas judged his age from the grizzling in his short

  beard. "One of the hard men," Nicholas thought.

  His ginger hair was cropped short, his eyes were pale killer blue. There

  was a puckered white scar that ran across one cheek and up to twist and

  deform his nose.

  Tessay introduced `Royan to him first, and he made a short, choppy bow

  as he shook her hand. "Enchant6, he told her in an execrable French

  accent and then looked at Nicholas.

  "This is my husband, Alto Boris," Tessay introduced him. "Boris, this is

  Alto Nicholas."

  "My English is bad," Boris said. "My French is better."

  "Not much to choose between them," Nicholas thought, but he smiled

  easily and said, "So we will speak French then. Bonjour, Monsieur

  Brusilov. I am delighted to make your acquaintance." He offered the

  Russian his hand.

  Boris's grip was hard - too hard. He was making a contest out of the

  greeting, but Nicholas had expected it He knew this type of old, and he

  had taken a deep grip so Boris could not crush his fingers. Nicholas

  held him without allowing any strain or effort to show on his lazy

  smile. Boris was the first to break the handshake, and there was just

  the trace of respect in those pale eyes.

  "So you have come for a dikdik?" he asked, just short of a sneer. Most

  of my clients come for big elephant, or at least for mountain nyala."

  "Bit rich for my nerves," Nicholas grinned, "all that big stuff. Dik-dik

  will suit me fine."

  "Have you ever been down in the gorge?" Boris demanded. His Russian

  accent overpowered the French words and made them difficult to follow.

  "Sir Nicholas was one of the leaders of the 1976 river expedition,'

  Royan intervened sweetly, and Nicholas was amused by her unexpected

  intervention. She had picked up the antagonism between them very

  quickly, and come to his rescue.

  Boris grunted, and turned to his wife. "Have you got all the stores I

  ordered?" he demanded.

  "Yes, Boris," she answered meekly. "They are all on board the aircraft."

  She is afraid of him, Nicholas decided, probably with good reason.

  "Let's get loaded up, then. We have a long journey ahead of us."

  The two men rode in the front seats of the Toyota, and the women sat

  behind them with many of the packages of stores packed in around them.

  Good African protocol, Nicholas smiled to himself: men first, women fend

  for themselves.

  "You don't want to do the tourist run, do you?" Boris made it sound like

  a threat.

  "The tourist run?"

  "The outlet from the lake, and the power station," he explained. "The

  Portuguese bridge over the gorge and the point where the Blue Nile

  begins," he added. But before they could accept he warned them, "If you

  do, we won't get into camp until long -after dark."

  "Thanks for the suggestion,) Nicholas told him politely, "but I have

  seen it all before."

  "Good." Boris made his approval evident. "Let's get out of here."

  The road swung away into the west, below the high mountains. This was

  the Goiam, the land of the aloof mountaineers. It was well-populated

  country, and they passed many tall, thin men along the roadside as they

  strode along behind their herds of goats and sheep, with their long

  staffs held crossways over their shoulders. Both men and women wore

  shammas, woollen shawls, and baggy white jodhpur pants, with their feet

  in open sandals.

  They were people with proud and handsome features, their hair dressed

  out into thick, bushy halos, and their eyes fierce as those of eagles.

  Some of the younger women in the villages they passed through were truly

  beautiful.

  Most of the men were heavily armed. They carried twohanded swords in

  chased silver scabbards, and AK-47 assault rifles.

  "Makes them feel like big men," Boris chuckled. "Very brave, very

  macho."

  The huts in the villages were circular walled tukuls, surrounded by

  plantations of eucalyptus and spiky-headed sisal.

  Bruised purple storm clouds boiled over the high peaks of the Choke and

  swept them with squalls of rain. Like silver coins, the huge drops

  rattled against the windscreen of the Land Cruiser and turned the road

  to a running river of mud under their wheels.

  The condition of the road surface was appalling; in places it

  deteriorated into a rocky gully which even the four-wheel drive Toyota

  could not negotiate, and Boris was forced to make his own track across

  the rocky hillside.

  Often reduced to walking speed, they were nevertheless tossed about in

  their seats as the wheels bounced over the rough terrain.

  "These damn blacks don't even think to repair the roads," Boris grunted.

  "They are happy to live like animals." None of them replied, but

  Nicholas glanced up into the rear-view mirror at the faces of the two

  women. They were closed and neutral, hiding any hurt that either of them

  might have felt at the remark.

  As they went on, the road, bad as it had been originally, became even

  worse. From here onwards the soft the fire. The two women sat a little

  to one side, talking quietly, and Boris had his fee
t propped on the low

  table as he leaned back in his chair with a glass in one hand.

  He indicated the vodka bottle on the table, as Nicholas stepped into the

  circle of firelight, "Get yourself a drink Ice in the bucket."

  "I prefer a beer," Nicholas told him. "Thirsty drive." Boris shrugged

  and bellowed for his camp butler to bring a brown bottle from the

  portable gas refrigerator.

  "Let me tell you something, a little secret." He grinned at Nicholas as

  he poured himself another vodka. "There is no such animal as a striped

  dik-dik these days, even if there ever was one. You are wasting your

  time and your money."

  "Fine," Nicholas agreed mildly. "It's my time and my money."

  "Just because some old fart shot one back in the Dark Ages, doesn't mean

  you are going to find another now. We could go up into the tea

  plantations for elephant. I saw three bulls there only ten days ago. All

  with tusks over a hundred pounds a side."

  As they argued, the level in Boris's vodka bottle fell like the Nile at

  the end of the inundation. When Tessay told them that the meal was

  ready, Boris carried the bottle with him; he stumbled on his way to the

  table. During the meal his only contribution to the conversation was to

  snarl at Tessay.

  "The lamb is raw. Why don't you see to it that the cook does it

  properly? Damn monkeys, you have to watch everything they do."

  "Is your lamb under-cooked, Alto Nicholas?" Tessay asked without looking

  at her husband. "I can have them cook it longer."

  "It's perfect he assured her. "I like mine pink."

  Si By the end of dinner the vodka bottle at Boris elbow was empty, and

  his face was flushed and swollen. He got up from the table without a

  word and disappeared into the darkness in the direction of his tent,

  swaying on his feet and occasionally catching his balance with a

  two-step jig.

  "I apologize," essay told them quietly. "It is only in the evenings. In

  the day he is fine. It is a Russian tradition, the vodka." She smiled

  brightly; only her eyes stayed sad.

  "It is a lovely night, and too early yet for bed. Would you like to walk

  up to the church? It is very old and famous.

  I will have one of the servants bring a lantern, so that you may admire

  the murals."

  The servant walked ahead of them, lighting their way, and an ancient

  priest waited to welcome them on the portico of the circular building.

  He was thin and so very black that only his teeth flashed in the gloom.

  He carried a magnificent Coptic cross in massive native silver, set with

  carnelians and other semi-precious stones.

  Both Royan and Tessay dropped on their knees in front of him to ask for

  his blessing. He slapped their cheeks lightly with the cross and

  genuflected over them, mumbling his benediction in Amharic. Then he

  ushered them into the interior.

  The walls were covered with a magnificent display of paintings in

  brilliant primary colours. In the lantern light they blazed like

  gemstones. There was a strong Byzantine flavour to the style: the

  saints' eyes were huge and slanted, with great golden halos over their

  heads. Above the altar, with its tinsel and brass furnishing, the Virgin

  cradled her infant while the three wise men and a host of angels knelt

  in adoration. Nicholas slipped his Polaroid camera from the pocket of

  his jacket and adjusted the flash. He wandered around the church

  photographing these murals, while Tessay and Royan knelt before the

  altar side by side.

  Once he had finished his photography Nicholas found a seat on the

  hand-hewn wooden pews and sat quietly watching their intent faces which

  the candlelight touched with golden highlights, and he was moved by the

  beauty of the moment.

  "I wish I had that kind of faith," he thought, as he had so often

  before. "It must be a comfort in the hard times. I wish I were able to

  pray like that for Rosalind and the girls." He could not stay longer,

  and he went out and sat on the church portico where he watched the night

  sky.

  In these high altitudes, in the thin unpolluted air, the stars were such

  a dazzling blaze that it was difficult to pick out the individual

  constellations. After a while his sadness abated. It was good to be back

  in Africa.

  When the two women emerged at last from the dark interior, Nicholas gave

  the old priest a one hundred birr note and a Polaroid photograph of

  himself which the old man clearly valued above the money. Then the three

  of them walked back down the hill together in companionable silence.

  icky!" Royan shook him awake. When he sat up and switched on his torch,

  he saw that she had thrown the woollen shawl over a pair of men's

  striped pyjamas before she had come into his tent.

  "What is it?" he asked, but before she could answer he heard the sound

  of a hoarse and angry voice shouting invective in the night, and then

  the unmistakable thud of a clenched fist striking flesh and bone.

  "He's beating her." Royan's voice was tight with out-' rage. "You have

  to make him stop."

  There was a cry of pain after the blow, and then sobs.

  Nicholas hesitated. Only a fool interferes between a man and his wife,

  and his reward usually is to have them unite and turn savagely upon him.

  "You must do something, Nicky, please., Reluctantly he swung his legs

  out of the cot and stood up. He slept in'boxer shorts, and he did not

  bother to find his shoes. She followed him, also on bare feet, to the

  end of the grove where Boris's tent stood beyond the dining tent.

  There was a lantern still burning within, and it threw magnified shadows

  on the canvas walls. He saw that Boris had his wife "by the hair and was

  dragging her across the floor, roaring at her in Russian.

  "Boris!" Nicholas had to shout his name three times to get his

  attention, and then they saw the shadow play on the canvas as he dropped

  Tessay and flung open the tent flap.

  He was dressed only in a pair of underpants. His torso was lean and

  muscular, the chest flat and hard-looking, covered with coppery curls.

  On the floor behind him Tessay lay face down, sobbing into her cupped

  hands. She was naked, and the planes of her body were sleek as those of

  a panther.

  "What the hell is going on here?" Nicholas demanded, his anger only just

  beginning to stir as he witnessed the gracious, gentle woman's distress

  and humiliation.

  "I am giving this black whore a lesson in good manners," Boris gloated,

  his face still swollen and flushed with drink and passion. "It's none of

  your business, English, unless you want to pay some money and have a bit

  of pork for yourself." He laughed, an ugly sound.

  "Are you all right, Woizero Tessay?" Nicholas looked directly into

  Boris's face, sparing the woman the further humiliation of another man's

  eyes on her nudity.

  Tessay sat up, lifted her knees against her chest, and hugged them with

  both arms to cover her body.

  "It's all right, Alto Nicholas. Please go away before there is real

  trouble." Blood was trickling from one nost
ril into her mouth, and

  dyeing her teeth pink.

  "You heard'my wife, English bastard. Go away! Mind your own business. Go

  away, before I give you a little lesson in good manners also."

  Boris staggered forward and thrust his open hand against Nicholas's

  chest. Nicholas moved as smoothly and as effortlessly as a matador

  avoiding the first wild charge of the bull. He swayed to one side, and

  used Boris's own momentum to send him on in the direction in which he

  was already committed. Completely off balance, the Russian reeled across

  the open ground in front of the tent until he collided with one of the

  camp chairs and went down in a sprawling heap.

  "Royan, take Tessay to your tent!" he ordered softly.

  Royan ran into the tent and pulled a sheet from the nearest cot. She

  spread it over Tessay's shoulders and lifted her to her feet.

  "Please, don't do this," Tessay sobbed. "You don't know him when he gets

  like this. He will hurt somebody."

  Royan dragged her, still protesting and weeping, out of the tent, but by

  now Boris was on his feet again. He bellowed with rage and picked up the

  camp chair that had tripped him. With a single jerk he tore off one of

  the legs and hefted it in his bunched fist.

  "You want to play games, English? All right, we play!" He rushed at

  Nicholas, swinging the chair leg like a Ninja baton, so that it hissed

  with the force with which he aimed it at his head. As Nicholas ducked

  under it Boris reversed the swing, going for the side of his chest,

  under his upraised arm. It would have staved in his ribs if it had

  landed, but again Nicholas twisted away.

  They circled each other warily, and then Boris charged again. If it had

  not been for the effect of the vodka on the Russian's reflexes Nicholas

  would never have taken a chance with an adversary of this calibre, but

  Boris was just loose enough in his control to allow him to duck in under

  the swinging chair leg. He straightened, with all his weight rolling

  into the punch, and his fist slogged into the pit Of Boris's belly just

  under the sternum. The Russian's breath was driven out of him in a great

  gusty belch.

  The chair leg flew from his grip, and he doubled over and collapsed.

  Clasping his middle, and heaving and wheezing for breath, Boris lay

  curled in the dust. Nicholas stooped over him and told him softly in

  English, "This sort of behaviour simply isn't good enough, old chap. We