Zambezi

by Tony Park

  ‘You left my father, us, for him.’ He blurted it out.

  She moved from the armchair to the sofa, sat down next to him, put a hand on his. Her touch was cold, her fingers bony. He looked into her eyes. No tears, only that same resignation he had seen earlier.

  ‘I’m not proud of what happened. Not pleased with myself, but not really ashamed either. What he wouldn’t have told you, Hassan, was that I tried. I tried damn hard to make a go of it. I was young, in trouble. I suppose you know you and your brother were conceived before we married?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I loved Zanzibar. I think I loved your father, for a time. But that island paradise quickly became a prison for me. He wouldn’t let me work, wouldn’t let me travel, hardly let me out on the street, wanted me to become something I couldn’t.’

  ‘He is a good man,’ Hassan mumbled.

  ‘God, I know that. And I’m a good woman. Ask anyone in the village!’ She forced a smile, but he was unmoved. ‘The point is, Hassan, that I couldn’t live like that. When it was over, when I knew I had to leave, I wanted to take the two of you with me.’

  ‘You did?’ Surprise and disbelief permeated the two words.

  ‘Of course. Don’t you think I loved you? Your father called in the lawyers, made all kinds of threats.’

  ‘He said, once, that you did not want us once we were born, that you rejected us.’

  ‘He would, wouldn’t he? Postnatal depression, Hassan. Look it up in any medical book. I had it.

  Boy oh boy, did I have it. Hardly surprising given that I was thousands of miles from home, imprisoned by a domineering husband and stuck in a stone house in one hundred and five degree heat!’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I got over it, Hassan, and learned to love you both, but I still couldn’t change my world, my circumstances, for the better. Also, by then that bloody Aisha was virtually caring for you and Iqbal twenty-four hours a day. She hated me, and I her from the start. I’m surprised your father didn’t marry her.’

  Hassan was taken off guard by her comment. Although when he thought about it, the idea of his father having some sort of romantic involvement with his nanny didn’t seem so strange. She was still an attractive woman, full-breasted with a sensual mouth and dark, inviting eyes.

  ‘I don’t suppose he told you I tried to come back, to visit you both?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I did. Two years after I left. I was back at work with the airline. Three separate times I tried. He wouldn’t let me past the door of the cafe. On my last visit I tracked down the school you were both attending. I stood at the fence, picked you two out immediately I wanted to come inside, to hold you, to tell you I loved you.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘God, the teachers would have had a fit. A strange, blubbering white woman barging in to molest two little boys.’

  He didn’t smile at her levity, just wondered what else had kept her at the fence. He finished his coffee. Suddenly he wanted out of this poky little cottage. He understood her reasons for leaving, even guessed that his father’s cloying love might be misconstrued as dominance, but he doubted he could ever really forgive her. ‘I’m sorry for taking so much of your time.’

  ‘You’re leaving already?’

  No hug, no invitation to stay, to meet his stepsisters. Not that he expected or wanted either.

  ‘There’s another bus soon. Forgive me for saying so, but you look a little tired, like you need a rest.’

  She shrugged as they stood. ‘Need more than a rest. Radiotherapy takes it out of you.’

  ‘You’re ill?’

  ‘Breast cancer, Hassan. The doctors aren’t hopeful… But please, if you want to visit again …’

  ‘I hope your treatment goes well. And thank you, but I doubt I’ll be back.’

  ‘Don’t leave angry.’

  They were at the door now. It was a day of shocks and now he simply felt numb. The news the mother he’d never known was dying was just one more revelation. He found it hard to arrange his thoughts. He needed fresh air. ‘I’m not angry.’

  ‘I can’t do the tearful reunion, Hassan. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’ve got a new family now and I’m faced with the problem of how to say goodbye to them.’

  The door was open now and she wrapped her bony arms around herself to ward off the chill and, he thought, to avoid any public display of emotion. She smiled. ‘Bet you have to fight the girls off?’

  He shrugged, embarrassed by the question. How could he tell her his first sexual experience had been with a blonde English girl, a backpacker staying at his father’s Stone Town hotel? His subsequent conquests had all been western girls as well, Dutch, German, Swiss and two more Britons. What would she make of that? ‘Better run if I’m going to catch the bus.’

  ‘Stay well, Hassan. If you do want to come again, do me a favour and call first. Will you tell your brother you saw me?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Probably best. It’ll be enough for me, as things draw to a close, to know that you realised that I did try.’

  ‘I understand. Goodbye then.’ No contact. No kiss, no hug, not even a handshake. All so damnably British.

  He never saw her again, didn’t know whether she had fought off the cancer or died in pain. It wasn’t hatred he felt, or bitterness. Just resignation. He had tried, as she had. About as hard as she had, he reckoned.

  His university days were enjoyable. He spent his free time like any other student did, partying, drinking and doing his best to have sex with as many members of the opposite gender as he could. In the last endeavour his good looks and exotic background gave him an edge over most of his fellow students. He preferred blondes with blue eyes, and there was no shortage of them in the university and the bars of Cambridgeshire.

  The girls he’d met invariably asked him how often he’d gone on safari and what he knew of Africa’s big game. The first few times he’d been embarrassed to admit he knew little of the continent of his birth beyond Zanzibar’s white sand shores. He’d seen his first rhinoceros at a wildlife park in Bedfordshire, of all places. He’d started reading up on African wildlife in his spare time. What began as another way to impress girls turned into an interest, and, after a couple of visits to Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park during college vacations, something of a passion.

  Having fulfilled his father’s wish for him to take a business qualification, he returned to Zanzibar after graduation and threw himself into more study, this time a subject of his own choosing – zoology By day he worked for his father in the Stone Town hotel. After a year he took over the family’s shabbiest hotel, in Dar es Salaam, and turned it from a run-down dive frequented by sailors, truck drivers and whores into a trendy, vibrant backpackers’ lodge. The hotel’s rooftop bar with its eclectic mix of carved African curios, Persian rugs and western music drew overland tour groups and independent travellers from other hotels in the port city. Most travellers through the region stopped over in Dar on their way across to Zanzibar. Sometimes a pretty girl – or two – usually fair-haired, would stay over a few extra nights, at no extra cost. The cash he generated from the fleapit-turnedhotspot helped him finance his first solo commercial purchase, the luxury bush lodge on the Zambezi River, in the wilds of Zambia.

  He had come far, successful in business in his own right, and independently wealthy since his father’s death. He had spent the last few years indulging his two great passions – beautiful women and African wildlife.

  But Miranda Banks-Lewis had offered him the one thing that was missing in his life. True love.

  Such a confusing, alien emotion, it had surprised him like the sudden rearing of a cobra in the grass.

  She had everything he might ever look for in a mate – beauty, intelligence and a passion for wildlife conservation. He had made his decision, had decided to commit himself to her totally, to curb his hedonistic tendencies.

  Hassan sighed and squint
ed, even though he was wearing sunglasses, at the bright whiteness of the sandy beach in front of the low-rise luxury resort just north of Dar es Salaam.

  The nose of the Zodiac fell, like his spirits, as he cut the power to the outboard motor. He had chanced everything on the beautiful American researcher, had risked his emotions just as he had when he confronted his mother. And, as in England, he had gambled and lost. The man he had come to meet slid off his stool under the beach bar’s awning and walked down the sand to greet him.

  Chapter 9

  Jed woke up with a hangover. He was drinking too much, but he didn’t care – he was looking for evidence his daughter was dead. He showered, then smoked a cigarette while he dressed. Outside the lake shimmered pale-gold in the dawn’s light.

  Christine had suggested they make an early start. She had grown silent after watching the news report and had never really rejoined their conversation as he and Moses swapped stories and male bullshit. She had left them straight after dinner, while he and Moses stayed behind for more drinks – beer for Jed and coffee for Moses. He liked the big Zimbabwean and felt at ease in his company.

  Moses, Jed had learned, had been kicked out of the family home the night before he and Chris found him and had slept in the bar. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. From what the tracker told him, the dropoff in tourism and hunting had left the family increasingly short of money Moses’s wife had a job as a sales assistant in a clothing shop. The pay was lousy, but her husband hadn’t made a cent in two months. Jed sensed the big man’s shame at his lack of employment. While he disapproved of the fact that Moses had been able to find enough cash to get dead drunk, he was pretty sure he believed the African when he said his latest binge was not a regular occurrence.

  ‘I do lots of things my wife accuses me of, Jed,’ Moses had told him as he finished his black coffee. ‘I am not a saint, but I don’t drink when I’m working for a client and I wouldn’t let my child starve. If I do a good job for you, I can go home with money in my pocket and my head held high. It has been a long time since that happened.’

  Jed had offered to pay for a hotel room for him for the night, but Moses had taken a cab back to Nyamhunga to ready his gear for the trip. Jed arranged to pick him up at the turn-off from the main road to the township the next morning.

  Jed packed his gear and checked out of the hotel. There was no sign of Chris in the car park, so he smoked another cigarette while he waited, savouring the mild morning air, which would soon give way to another hot, sticky day.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, I was making a call home,’ she said, hurrying up the stone steps from reception.

  ‘Let me give you a hand with those.’ He reached for the aluminium case she was carrying.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, holding the bag away from him. ‘You could give me a hand with the pack, though.’

  ‘Sure. What’s in there anyway?’ He nodded to the silver-coloured case.

  ‘Photographic gear. It’s expensive.’

  He nodded, tossed her backpack into the rear of her Land Rover and stood aside while she loaded the case.

  It was a beautiful morning. As they climbed up out of the valley Chris slowed her Land Rover and Jed geared down to keep the interval between them. He wasn’t sure why she had dropped her speed to a crawl, nor why she turned on her right-hand indicator, even though there was no side road. He looked again at the trees to his right. Emerging from the forest was a zebra. He was surprised to see the exotic animal so close to a built-up area. In his mind, animals were found on the savanna or in dense jungles, not on the side of a black-top highway within view of a busy town.

  The zebra stopped at the edge of the tree line and sniffed the air. Jed could see now it was a stallion. He was fascinated by the way its stripes continued unbroken from its body up into its bristling mane. The animal turned and stared at Chris’s Land Rover for a few seconds, then continued walking. Four more zebra, including a tiny foal on spindly legs in the middle of the procession, emerged from the trees and crossed the road in front of them. A zebra crossing, Jed thought to himself, smiling at his own stupid joke.

  God, he wished Miranda was with him.

  Moses was waiting for them at the Nyamhunga turn-off, sitting by the side of the road on a green canvas rucksack.

  ‘Climb in.’ Jed reached across to open the passenger door and Moses tossed his pack onto the back seat.

  They drove on in companionable silence for a while.

  ‘Lion,’ Moses said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lion,’ he repeated, matter-of-factly.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up ahead. Slow down now. See her?’

  Jed’s heart was racing as he scanned the road ahead and the bush on either side. ‘I still can’t see it.’

  ‘Flash your lights – Christine hasn’t seen it yet either.’

  Chris caught the winking lights in her rear-view mirror and slowed down.

  ‘Look, to the left, at about ten o’clock. A lioness. Here she comes now.’

  Jed strained, holding a hand up to shield his eyes from the morning sun’s glare. ‘I see her!’

  ‘She is alone. She has young cubs denned somewhere. See how full her teats are. She is waiting for the cubs to grow stronger before she takes them back to the pride. She’s returning from a night hunt.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘See the dried blood around her mouth.’

  The lioness was big. Long-limbed, spare, all muscle – now that he looked closer Jed could see how her belly bulged with the night’s kill. As she crossed the road she paused for a couple of seconds and bared long yellowed fangs, panting slightly as she stared at Jed’s vehicle.

  Jed felt a chill down his back at the sight of her. He wasn’t scared so much as awed by the raw power the animal exuded. He took in the rippling neck muscles, the huge padded paws, the pitiless amber eyes. Here was power, pure and simple: nature’s ultimate killer. He could barely imagine the primal terror her victims felt as those powerful jaws entrapped them.

  The lioness padded across the tarmac road and disappeared into the long golden grass on the far side.

  Jed’s pulse was racing. ‘Incredible.’

  ‘You’re lucky I haven’t seen lions on this road very often.’

  ‘Tell me, what would she have done if I’d got out of the car?’

  ‘One of two things. Most likely, she would have run away She’s used to seeing cars, but the silhouette of a man means danger for most animals. On the other hand, if her cubs are close by, and she considered you a threat to them, she would have charged and killed you.’

  The road snaked upwards, the gradient getting steeper and the hairpin bends tighter as they made for the ridgeline that carried the main road from Harare. The rolling tree-covered hills that stretched away in front of them were beautiful, studded with flat-topped acacia trees. The road followed the ridge for a while and, as they drove through a high pass, Jed again caught a glimpse of the wide valley below, then they dropped down and started their descent into the Zambezi Valley. Jed saw a cluster of buildings ahead and to their left.

  ‘This is Marongora,’ Moses said, ‘where we have to sign in and get permits to enter the national park.’

  The two vehicles crunched up a curving gravel driveway and stopped under a shady tree, outside a single-storey building painted a dull olive-green. An assortment of large whitewashed animal skulls was dotted around the pathway leading to the National Parks building. It was cool inside the office and Jed scanned a large-scale map of the Zambezi Valley pinned to the wall as Moses and Christine went through the formalities of arranging permits. Both of them greeted the ranger behind the desk like an old friend.

  ‘We have to pay for the vehicle entry here,’ Moses explained to Jed. ‘You pay for your own entry once we get to the main office inside the national park. As a foreigner, you have to pay more money, and in US dollars.’

  ‘Nothing like being made to feel welcome. What about you?�
�� he asked Chris.

  ‘I’ve got a permit already, it’s still valid. You have to sign the register as well’ She pointed to a book on the polished wooden counter.

  The ranger handed him a pen. He filled out his name and address and scanned the page. Apparently there were few visitors to the park these days, as the entries on the single page in front of him covered a three-month period. He noted the countries of origin of the visitors – a few British, a couple of Germans, some Danes and a smattering of New Zealanders and Australians. He saw Chris’s entry in the book, but apart from her there was only one other American visitor to the park.

  Miranda Banks-Lewis. He stared at his daughter’s large, bold handwriting and ran his forefinger along the dried ink.

  ‘Come on, Jed, we’ve still got a couple of hours’ drive to reach the lodges,’ Chris said.

  ‘Just a minute.’ He checked the date. Miranda had entered the park three weeks ago to the day. He was confused – he thought she had been in Mana Pools for three months. He looked up at the ranger.

  ‘How often does someone need to purchase a permit?’

  ‘It depends, sir, on the length of their booking.’

  ‘If someone was staying in the park on a research project for six months, could they get a permit for that long?’

  ‘Yes. As long as they had their campsite or accommodation booking for the same period.’

  ‘What about if they wanted to go out and do some shopping, to stock up on supplies?’

  ‘A person could leave for a day or two, but as long as they keep paying for their accommodation they would not need a new entry permit each time.’

  ‘Do you keep records of when people leave the park?’

  ‘Jed, we’re burning daylight,’ Chris interrupted, pointedly looking at her wristwatch.

  He turned to her. ‘Go on ahead without us, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  He turned to the ranger. ‘What happens when someone leaves for good?’

  ‘The gate officer collects your permit and it is brought here and filed.’