Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

Daniel locked the Land Rover and the four of them began the walk to the boma. So far as Natalie was aware, it had no name, though a large rock nearby was called Tsuvata.

  It had been a week since Jack and Natalie had visited Ngorongoro. Jack was in Nairobi, as he had said. That at least gave her time to think.

  He hadn’t made a big thing about kissing her cheek at the crater. And there had been no more attempts at bodily contact. She was grateful for that. First Russell, then Christopher, now Jack. Yes, she was single; yes, she wasn’t either stick thin or balloon fat; yes, they were isolated out here in Kihara; no, she didn’t object to all the attention. To an extent, it reassured her in the wake of the business with Dominic. Still, the fact that two brothers had now … done what they had done … she would have to be more than careful how she let things proceed. And Eleanor was surely watching.

  Today was the “propitious” day when the Maasai had at last agreed to meet Eleanor and the others, and as they approached the boma a handful of men came forward to greet them, each dressed in a dark red cloak, carrying a metal spear, and wearing a variety of black and white stone jewelry: bangles on their wrists, rings in their ears, several at a time in some cases, and layers of stone necklaces. None of the leaders smiled but some of the people behind them, especially the children, grinned.

  Eleanor stopped and so did Daniel and the others. She said something in Swahili and one of the elders turned to the others and repeated what she had said in Maasai.

  “I said I had some gifts for them,” said Eleanor, turning back to the others.

  She now lifted her arms, to present a large box of matches and some firelighters. She knew this would go down well. Anything that made lighting fires easier in the bush was to be welcomed.

  The translator finished speaking and one of the leaders stepped forward and accepted the bundle from Eleanor. He smiled slightly and then turned to the translator. The translator listened, and then spoke to Eleanor in Swahili.

  “He has thanked us for the firelighters and matches.”

  The elder nodded to Natalie.

  “He wants to know if you are the witness—I told him yes.”

  The elder was speaking again. When the translation was finished, Eleanor said, “We are invited into his village. Be very careful. We may be offered food and drink. It is very rude to refuse and you must consume all you are given.”

  She smiled at the chief elder and as he turned the others in the tribe stood back to open up a passage for Eleanor and him to proceed. Natalie, Christopher, and Daniel followed, then the other elders came after them.

  Inside the boma there were huts on either side of a wide passage which led to the second fence or hedge. Near this fence was a table, with jugs and plates of food. As the party approached the table, two women came forward, holding dishes and cups. On the dishes were what Natalie took to be dried meat. She took one slice. She was handed a cup and it was soon filled with a milky liquid.

  The elders had all taken some meat and been given cups. The chief elder made a short speech which was quickly translated from Maasai to Swahili. Eleanor turned and said, “We are eating produce of the area: dried kudu and water with honey—the honey comes from local bees. He’s making a point, I think, that this is what they do here—produce food. In other words the land is rich and we—the white people—are merely bystanders.”

  Eleanor said something in Swahili, smiled, and then swallowed her kudu and drank some honeyed water.

  Natalie tackled her meat. It was tough and strong-tasting. She sipped the water, and immediately knew she would have a problem finishing it. The water was far too sweet for her. She’d just have to go on sipping and nibbling.

  The chief elder, a tall man with a very flat nose and large hands, wearing more jewelry than most, waited for Eleanor to finish her meat and her drink, and then the cup was taken from her. Larger bowls were brought and they both washed their hands.

  “This is important,” she said, turning to the others. “As you can see, with so many predators around, bomas are built with defense as the first priority. They don’t build villages near rivers as happens in Europe. Elephants might come through at any time and trample over everything. Which means that the water has to be brought a long way; it is very precious.”

  She turned back to the chief elder.

  He had taken back his spear from the second elder, whom he had given it to, and now he sat on a chunk of wooden tree trunk that had been brought out. Another had been put in position for Eleanor, and she sat down.

  The chief elder put his spear across his knees. Speaking through the interpreter, he began: “I see you are familiar with our customs.”

  It was a barbed beginning. If Eleanor was familiar with their customs, he was saying, how could she have allowed such a terrible thing to happen?

  “Chief Marongo,” said Eleanor. “Thank you for agreeing to see us.” She spoke without shouting but her voice was strong, forceful, pitched so that everyone could hear. “Thank you for the kudu and sweet water. You are a welcoming man and a fine chief. I hope that you will have many more children and that your cattle will remain healthy.”

  Natalie listened to the translator’s murmur and marveled at Eleanor’s composure. Her African birth and her long years in the gorge meant she could utter these formalities without sounding in the least patronizing—it was clear that she meant what she said.

  But then she paused, while she took off her hat and spectacles.

  “This is a dreadful situation,” Eleanor said. “I cannot apologize enough for what has happened. But the two men who broke into your sacred burial ground didn’t know any better. You must know that I have sent the second man away, as a mark of respect for your tribe, and to preserve a life that I knew was at risk. Despite what has happened, I take your traditions very seriously.”

  Eleanor sat upright. Natalie reflected that she had a dignified appearance and manner when it was needed. And it was needed now.

  “You and I have known each other over many years,” continued Eleanor. “Since before you were a chief. We have never had any quarrel before. We have exchanged gifts, you have seen our work in the gorge, we have never interfered with your farming. We have helped you and provided vehicles when members of your tribe needed to get to the hospital quickly.”

  She didn’t smile as she said, “You are a wise man, Marongo, a fair man,” pausing just a little as she said this. “And gracious. If you can find space in your heart, then you have the power to help me now.” She clasped her hands together. “Please ask the elders to change their minds.”

  The chief listened to the translation, and then looked around him, at those standing behind him. He turned back to Eleanor and gripped his spear on his knees.

  “Tell me, Dr. Deacon,” he said, “was Dr. Sutton married?”

  “No.”

  The chief nodded, half to himself. He looked off to his left and raised his arm, pointing, then beckoning.

  Part of the throng of villagers which ringed Eleanor, Natalie, the chief, and the others shuffled to one side and a woman moved forward. She was small, with her hair in braids, and she had beautiful nut-brown skin, paler on her cheeks than elsewhere. She carried a baby and, behind her, two small children wrapped in tiny red cloaks followed, holding hands.

  The woman walked up to the chief, who stood and put his hand on her head. He drew the two children to him.

  “This is Atape, Ndekei’s wife.” He indicated the children. “These are Tife and Sanga, and the new one, Nbole, the rest of his family.”

  He smiled as he spoke.

  “They are lively children,” said the translator. “Tife, especially, makes a lot of noise.”

  But then the chief’s features clouded.

  “If Ndekei is hanged, or sent to prison for many years, Tife, Sanga, Nbole, and Atape will go without food and clothes. Their relatives will have to look after them, producing a widening circle of hardship.”

  Chief Marongo’s features cleared but he ra
ised his voice. “Is that fair or just? Ndekei did not break our laws, Maasai laws.” He gripped his spear and stamped it into the ground. “On the contrary. After the desecration of our burial ground, the land of our ancestors, the elders met. It was noted where Ndekei worked and he was chosen for the task of retribution, as tribal law demands.” Another stamp of the spear. “It was not a crime, it was an honor!”

  The chief turned and spoke to someone behind him. Other heads turned, then an object was passed forward.

  Natalie gasped noiselessly and held her hand to her throat.

  “According to our custom,” said the chief, “Ndekei had to bring us something that belonged to the victim, with blood on it, to prove he had done what the elders asked. He did so. Now it has been washed, cleansed of the blood of the victim, and it can be returned to you. We do not want it.”

  One of the other elders stepped forward and handed Richard’s watch to Eleanor.

  No one in the camp had noticed it was missing.

  She took it without speaking, turned, and handed it to Daniel.

  As she turned back, the chief said, “Come.” The elders had already made a gap for him to leave by and he waited while Eleanor and the others moved forward.

  He led the way out of the boma through some trees, then around the side of a large red rock. Mosses hung in luscious swags from the rock but there was also a smell of burning, where some stubble had recently been cleared away.

  Rounding the shoulder of the slope, with the large rock now behind them, they found themselves on the lip of a small valley, cut into by the dried bed of a seasonal stream. On the far side of the dried bed, the valley slope was sprinkled with trees—flat-topped acacias, figs, whistling thorns. Among the trees they could see goats grazing, watched over by two small boys.

  The chief beckoned again for Eleanor and the others to come and stand near him. When they were gathered, he lifted his spear and pointed with it to the trees and goats. He spoke in short bursts, to allow the interpreter a chance to catch up.

  “This is our burial ground. Notice how wooded it is, how fertile. The gods look after our ancestors. This is our land and has been for generations. Many of our warriors are buried here. We farm this land, we hunt here, we fall sick here and die here. The people we remember are buried here.”

  He turned to Eleanor. “Where will Dr. Sutton be buried?”

  Natalie couldn’t be sure but she thought she saw Eleanor blush. “I don’t know exactly. In America.”

  “And where will you be buried, Dr. Deacon?”

  “With my husband, in Nairobi.”

  The chief didn’t speak for a moment.

  Together they watched the goats moving between the trees on the slope opposite. The boys lay dozing on rocks, or against the trunks of trees, one of them always keeping a lookout for predators.

  The wind rose and fell in gusts. Chief Marongo was in no hurry. He let his words sink in.

  “Nairobi. Where the government is. A white government that soon will go away. The black man will regain what is his.” The chief turned to Eleanor again. “The government has its laws, laws introduced by foreigners, the white man. They may suit his way of life but we were never asked about these laws. They are not our laws.”

  He pointed with his spear again to a cluster of trees at the upper end of the burial ground. “Dr. Sutton and someone else stole the bones of one of our finest warriors, a great man—the man, Ollantashante, that your own son was named in honor of. The greatest honor we can bestow on someone from another people. According to our custom, such an act, despoiling a burial ground, is like stealing the bones of the gods themselves.”

  “I know—” Eleanor went to speak but the chief silenced her with a wave of his spear.

  “The chief asks: Can you have the trial stopped?” the translator said.

  “No. I’m sorry. The law must take its course.”

  Hearing this, Marongo gave Eleanor a long appraising stare. At length, he spoke: “And so too with our custom … it will take its course. You have your laws, we have ours. But Dr. Sutton’s crime came before Ndekei’s. It was unprovoked and therefore, according to our traditions, Dr. Sutton’s crime was worse.”

  “Please, Marongo,” urged Eleanor.

  But the chief stamped his spear again. “The elders have decided. Ndekei will plead not guilty to murder and will say he was acting according to tribal custom.”

  He raised himself up and drew back his head. “And we are not a small tribe—look!” He pointed behind them with his spear.

  Eleanor, Natalie, and the others turned.

  Kees gasped.

  Beyond the village, all along the skyline, was a line of Maasai warriors, each wrapped in a dark red cloak and carrying a shield and spear. There must have been hundreds of men, throwing a line of shadow from the setting sun. The silence, the sheer numbers, and the shadows were very menacing. It was a show of force and a statement of intent.

  Eleanor and the others turned back to look at Marongo.

  He had taken hold of Tife’s hand. “Ndekei’s family will be in court. Kenya is to have independence soon. We shall see how the newspapers respond to the trial.”

  • • •

  “I won’t stay long. But I thought you might like to discuss what happened today—my mother has filled me in.” Jack spoke quietly as he lowered himself into Natalie’s spare seat, outside her tent. This was a new maneuver of his but she knew that he had only arrived back from Nairobi just before dusk and, after making the plane safe against the animals, had been late in to dinner. He had brought his own cigarettes and lit one.

  Natalie was already smoking one of hers. The stars overhead were as close as ever, glittering against the immeasurable coal-black depth of the universe.

  “What is there to discuss? It all seemed pretty straightforward to me. We are locked on a course for collision, all because of something I saw. You should have seen the number of warriors Marongo amassed. They stretched right across the skyline.” She fought to control herself.

  He let a short silence elapse.

  “What did you make of Marongo?”

  She drew on her cigarette and breathed out the smoke. She hadn’t taken out the whiskey tonight. She didn’t know why.

  “I liked him. Or, I didn’t dislike him. You can see why he’s a chief. He’s strong and, with his own people, probably fair.”

  Jack fingered the scar above his eyebrow. “Before he was elected chief, he used to work here.”

  “He did? As what?”

  “Oh, nothing specific. He was very strong and did all sorts of jobs, lifting and carrying. I once saw him and another Maasai, during the rains, lift a Land Rover out of a hole where it had got stuck.” He paused. “He knows our ways better than we know theirs. And he’s not just strong, he’s ambitious.”

  “Ambitious? I don’t understand. Where does ambition come in?”

  Jack drew on his cigarette again, and breathed out heavily. “After independence, Marongo may run as a candidate for the new parliament. This case, this trial, will raise his profile, make him better known. He can’t lose. If Ndekei is convicted, and hanged, Marongo will become the representative of Maasai grievance; if Ndekei is acquitted, they will both be heroes.”

  Natalie shook her head. “How do you know all this? How long have you known all this?”

  “You remember my mother was in Nairobi about a week ago, when we went to the crater? Among other things, she met Maxwell Sandys.”

  Natalie crushed out the remains of her cigarette. “Where was your mother tonight?”

  Eleanor had not been present at dinner, but had had a tray sent to her tent, something Natalie had never known happen before. “Is she not well?”

  “She’s well enough,” growled Jack. “But I am afraid Marongo’s implacability had a big effect on her. She thought—” He shifted in his chair. “She thought that if she came to dinner, there would be an argument, a fight, that she might say things she would regret. She thinks all t
his business about ‘propitious’ dates is nonsense. The meeting was held today because Marongo, cunning as he is, knew I would be away in Nairobi and he wouldn’t have to come face to face with his boyhood friend. The elders were never going to give way.” He sighed, reached forward, and put his hand on hers. “She’s right.”

  “Hmm.” Natalie snorted. “I’m not sure I buy that, Jack. I don’t know your mother as well as you do, naturally, but I do know that she’s not one to avoid confrontation. She’s her own woman, strong-willed, she knows her own mind, and this is her home ground. Sulking in her tent is very definitely not your mother’s style.” She took a deep breath, considered bringing out the whiskey, thought better of it. “So what’s going on?”

  Jack took his hand off hers and leaned back. He chewed at his lower lip, taking a fresh cigarette from his pack and lighting it. He breathed out the smoke.

  “We had a fight.”

  Natalie played with her mother’s watch on her wrist.

  Baboons screamed across the gorge.

  “Go on.”

  The smell of the campfire came at them in wafts.

  “She was sitting in her tent—in that outer room she has, the one with the radio and the first-aid kit. She had just been talking to Maxwell Sandys on the radio-telephone and he had told her about Chief Marongo’s political ambitions. She was very low.” He brushed his hair off his face. “Until then, I think, she had hoped that a solution might be found. Yes, Marongo was fairly intractable when you were all in the boma but that might have been a negotiating position. After all, I’m sure we could do something to help Ndekei’s family—financially, I mean—and Marongo knows that.”

  He drew on his cigarette again.

  “But once she heard about the chief’s political aims, she realized that nothing she could do would make a bit of difference. Either the trial has to be stopped, or the gorge will be reclaimed—either outcome suits Marongo’s wider aims.”

  The drone of a jet reached them from way up high.

  “So what did you fight about?”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I told her she was being defeatist, that it wasn’t necessarily a question of Ndekei or us, that we still have plenty of room for maneuver.” He fingered his cigarette pack. “I said: Look—” and he put the forefinger of one hand against the thumb of the other. “One, we have a knee joint.” He moved his forefinger to the forefinger of his other hand. “Two, a jaw with teeth … three, some skull bones … four, a wall, five, some obsidian …”