Mackenzie Ford

by The Clouds Beneath the Sun (v5)

  Eleanor sat down at a long table, with microphones at the center. Natalie sat on her left, Daniel on her right, with Jonas Jefferson on his right. Most of the people in the room—though by no means all—were white. Jack, Christopher, and Arnold were in the front row. And in the second was—Russell North.

  The evening before, Natalie, Jack, Christopher, Eleanor, and the rest of the team had eaten dinner together at a restaurant near the Rhodes Hotel after their meeting to discuss how the press conference should proceed. Natalie and Jack had just flown in from Lamu, Jack once again parking his Comanche where he could get a good look at the private jets on show at Nairobi International. Christopher and his mother had stayed behind with Daniel to discuss the slides they were going to show. Arnold and Jonas had gone off in search of a late-night beer, leaving Natalie and Jack to stroll back together to the hotel. In the lobby they had bumped into Russell.

  “My God,” Natalie had said. “This is a surprise.”

  Russell hadn’t replied immediately. He towered over them like a bear. “I’m here for the press conference,” he had said at length. “Was anyone going to tell me? Or has my contribution been forgotten already?” His face was flushed.

  “California is twelve thousand miles from Kenya, Professor North,” said Jack. “No one imagined you would want to make such a long journey for a two-hour press conference. But you don’t need to worry, your part will get its proper due. I wrote the words myself.”

  “Hmm,” grunted Russell. He addressed himself to Natalie. “You look more lovely than ever. Are we going to get a chance to talk?” He pointedly ignored Jack.

  “Yes, of course,” said Natalie.

  “When?”

  There it was, the same directness, the same edge, the same stampede. Russell hadn’t changed.

  “Sometime tomorrow? After the conference?”

  “Dinner?”

  She glanced at Jack.

  “Do you need his permission now?”

  “Steady—” Jack put his hand on Russell’s arm.

  “I’m talking to her!” Russell shook it off.

  He stared at her, unflinching. “Well?”

  Natalie slowly looked from Russell to Jack. “When do we fly back to the gorge?”

  “Not for a day or two, not till we have seen the press reaction to the conference.”

  She had nodded, and said to Russell, “Then I’d love to.”

  “Good, let’s meet here in the bar, at seven. We can have another whiskey session.” He had smiled but disappeared without saying anything more.

  Natalie and Jack had stood awkwardly in the lobby for a moment.

  “Nightcap?” Jack had said eventually.

  “No,” she replied softly. “We all have to be at our best tomorrow, the future of the gorge may depend on it, on how we perform. Your mother said she wants me up there on the stage with her, so I’m going to bed now. I’m going to brush my hair for a couple of minutes, as I always do, and then I’m going to sleep. I want the full eight hours tonight, so I’m spick and span in the morning.”

  “I get the message,” Jack had said. “I’ll have a nightcap and try to relive last night.” He kissed her on the cheek and went in to the bar as she took the stairs to her room.

  When she let herself in, the overhead fan had been turned on and it was cool. She kicked off her shoes, flopped onto the bed, and stared up at the whirring blades. Natalie had surprised herself on their last night in Lamu and she was still adjusting to … to what she had done. She couldn’t explain it exactly because there had been no one reason why she had behaved as she had. Perhaps the oddest thing about the whole business is that although she had surprised herself, she hadn’t really shocked herself.

  Jack was the third man she had slept with. Dominic had been the first and she always counted herself lucky that she’d had that experience. The second man had been a disaster, though it wasn’t really his fault. She had agreed to go out with him on the rebound and had agreed to go to bed with him, half convincing herself that the best way to forget Dominic would be in the oblivion of sex. Of course, the exact opposite had happened and afterwards she had felt cold and lonely and unclean.

  Sex with Jack had been different again. When he had rescued her during the wildebeest stampede, and folded his hands around her breasts, it had—involuntarily—brought back the erotic times she had shared with Dominic, the afternoons in her rooms at Cambridge, hotel rooms in London, once or twice in other cities, when they had veered between tenderness and near savagery, when her sheer greed for sensuality had exhausted her and, yes, surprised her. It was a side to Natalie that she had never expected to satisfy in the gorge and which, now that it had begun to reassert itself, she hadn’t really welcomed.

  But then had come the physicality and sensuality of Lamu—the swimming, the colors of the fish, the rhythmical swaying of the underwater vegetation, Jack touching the skin on her legs when he was extracting the sea-urchin spines from her knee, his frank appraisal of her body when she had worn her bikini, their rubbing sun lotion over each other, the warm blackness of the hotel balcony, the warm wood, its comforting smell. Jack had not pressed himself on her before, he had not crowded her in any way, but she was twenty-eight, dammit, and she had needed a man, she had needed his hands, his mouth, everything, on her, over her, around her, in her, and she had needed the release, she had needed to be released, to experience that release with someone, so she could also experience afterwards—afterwards was as important as all that went before.

  He had not disappointed her. If he was not Dominic, his body was firmer, his muscles harder, his skin smoother, the stubble on his chin less brittle, the sounds he made were wilder. His appetite, his performance—there was no other word—had matched hers.

  • • •

  “Can you close the doors at the back, please? That will tell latecomers we’ve started.” Eleanor waited while the doors were closed. Then she said, “Good morning again, everyone. My name is Eleanor Deacon and I am the director of excavations at Kihara Gorge, here in Kenya. You see with me here several of my colleagues who will be introduced to you in a few moments, as we go through the story we have to tell you.”

  She took off her spectacles. “Many of you are journalists out from Britain, here on a fact-finding mission ahead of the independence conference that is to be held in London in the middle of February. My colleagues and I apologize for breaking into your busy schedule, but we think our story is almost as interesting as independence and shows an important side to Kenya which, once it is a sovereign state, will set the country apart.”

  She paused, to let a few latecomers find seats.

  “First, a little orientation. Can we have the lights out, please, and the first slide, Christopher.”

  The lights went down and a map became visible on the screen behind the stage. It was a map of Kenya with the location of the gorge highlighted. Eleanor briefly explained the history of the gorge, its geology, its wildlife, the Maasai. Then the lights went up again.

  “My late husband, Jock Deacon, and I have been excavating in Kihara for decades. Some seasons have been better than others, but the reason we have asked you here today is to announce that this season, the 1961–62 season in Kihara, is the best ever. We have made half a dozen very important discoveries which, when taken together, enable us to make a major announcement today about how early man, two million years ago, first emerged here in Kenya, in the Kihara Gorge.”

  Natalie, sitting on Eleanor’s left, noticed how the journalists had begun to write in their notebooks. Eleanor now had their full attention.

  “I will now talk you through the discoveries and what they mean. The actual objects will be available at the end, for you to inspect for yourselves, and we have prepared photographs of the discoveries, which are free for you to take away. I will describe the objects in the order in which they were discovered, so that you can get some idea of how our understanding of early man arose, which will also help convey some of the excitement
of excavation.”

  The lights were lowered and a slide of the knee joint was shown.

  “This was the first discovery, made by Daniel Mutevu, seated here on my right, and by the late Professor Richard Sutton, of New York University, and Professor Russell North of the University of California at Berkeley, who I see is sitting in the second row this morning. The significance of this configuration of bones is that they indicate that this creature, whoever he or she was, walked upright. As you may know, the rest of the great apes walk on all fours, or else walk with their knuckles on the ground. Charles Darwin, in the nineteenth century, was the first to suggest that walking upright freed early man’s hands to use and manufacture tools and it was this which became the basis of culture and eventually separated man from the other apes and set humans apart from all the other animals. We now know that this all-important process first occurred two million years ago, right here in Kenya, in Kihara Gorge. As I say, we can discuss these bones in more detail afterwards if any of you are interested.”

  And so, Eleanor pressed on, introducing the jaw, teeth, and skull bones that Natalie had discovered, Natalie’s shelter, Kees’s hand axes. She didn’t hurry, and it took a good fifty minutes before she began to wind up.

  “It is an amazing story when you stop to reflect on it. Kenya, the Kihara Gorge, is the cradle of mankind. Humans first evolved right here in this part of East Africa and then spread out to populate the globe, as we see around us today. In honor of this phenomenon, this great story, this romantic idea, we are calling this new species of man’s ancestor Homo kiharensis. The Kihara Gorge should become one of the wonders of the world. To us, it already is. Thank you.”

  The lights went on and a ripple of applause spread around the assembled audience.

  Eleanor stood up. “As I said, copies of the press release and photographs will be available at the back of the hall afterwards. We will now take questions. Please identify who you are and which publication you represent.”

  There was a short delay before a small, balding, rather fat man stood up. “I’m Tom Jellinek, from the Daily Telegraph in London. I found your presentation very interesting but I am a political reporter out here from London, so forgive me if my question is naive. Would this early form of humanity—if I can put it that way—have been able to speak? Did he or she have language?”

  “No, that’s a good question,” said Eleanor, “but we have no information on this, one way or another. If we had found the hyoid bone as part of the skull, its shape might have told us about the structure of the creature’s throat, which would have enabled us to say something, but we haven’t found it yet. Some people might think that, in order to construct stone tools of the kind we have found, early man would have needed language, so that parents could explain to their children what to do, but that is conjecture, indirect argument, and we have avoided speculation. I hope that helps.”

  Another man stood up. “Curtis Vallance, Reuters.” He had an American accent. “Can you say something about these stone tools. Why is the change in style so important?”

  “Yes,” said Eleanor. “The first use of stone tools was important because those tools enabled early man to pierce the hide of other animals. That indicates a change in diet, from one made up predominantly of vegetables to one rich in animal flesh—or protein, meat. Protein, we know, aids brain development, so the use of tools increases the difference in intelligence between humans and other animals. The change to smaller tools means two things at least. One, the tools are getting more efficient and, two, they can be carried farther, they are less bulky. Early man could go looking for food, rather than have to wait till it came to him.”

  Vallance nodded his thanks and scribbled in his pad.

  Eleanor’s gaze raked the room but before any other journalist could speak, Russell stood up. He didn’t bother with who he was, but just launched into what he had to say. His size meant that everyone could see him well enough.

  “You paint a very cogent and exciting scientific picture but, speaking as a scientist myself, isn’t there something rather odd about the procedure you are following, this very press conference itself, for example?” He had half turned, so the rest of the room could hear him better. “What I mean is: so far as I know, you haven’t published any of your most recent discoveries in the scientific press, which normally would take priority. The scientific press—the scientific community—take a dim view of colleagues who announce their results at a jamboree like this one, so why have you gone down this route?”

  Natalie was stiff with nerves; what was Russell playing at? But Eleanor kept her tone relaxed as she said: “I would have thought that was obvious, Professor North. A contingent of British journalists is here in Nairobi, on a fact-finding mission ahead of the independence conference due to take place in London in mid-February. It presents a golden opportunity for us to make known our results to a wide public and to show Kenya at its best when the eyes of the world will soon be upon her. We are of course planning scientific publication at a later date.”

  Russell was still on his feet. “So this conference has nothing to do with the upcoming trial of Mutevu Ndekei, who used to be the camp cook at Kihara and who virtually beheaded one of your team, Professor Richard Sutton? It has nothing to do with the fact that Dr. Natalie Nelson, sitting there on your left, will be the main witness against Ndekei, in a trial that will pit a white witness against a black defendant, and is due to take place in the very week that the independence conference will begin in London? It has nothing to do with the fact that the Maasai tribe, who claim ownership of the gorge, have threatened to reoccupy it and destroy it if Ndekei is convicted and sentenced to hang? Are we to take it that the timing of this conference is pure coincidence?”

  “Those are all—” Eleanor began, but Russell was in full stampede mode, his face redder than Natalie had ever seen it.

  “Is it not true that, despite the united front you display here, today, this morning, in this lecture hall, that in fact your team is bitterly divided?” He pointed directly at Natalie. “Is it not true that Dr. Nelson here fully intends to give evidence against Ndekei, despite the threats posed by the Maasai, but that you, Dr. Deacon, have repeatedly tried to get her to change her testimony, so that the proceedings against Ndekei will be dropped, a maneuver that will preserve your precious gorge at any cost? Is it not true that you, Dr. Deacon, are willing to sweep the murder of a noted professor under the carpet so as to maintain your research opportunities? Isn’t the whole point of this press conference to bolster your achievements in the gorge and to head off the Maasai? Isn’t that why you are not following normal scientific protocol—you are trying to salvage your reputation in the face of impending disaster, that the tribal customs of Kenya will stop scientific progress in its tracks, only you can’t say so for fear of being thought racist or colonialist?”

  Eleanor stood up in an attempt to stem the flood, but Russell wouldn’t be stemmed.

  “A white man, a talented white man, a world-class scientist, was brutally murdered in a camp run by you, sliced up by a black man with a machete, a mere camp cook from the Maasai tribe, who ran off. A white woman, Dr. Natalie Nelson, was a witness. Now the murderer claims he was acting according to Maasai tradition. Where do you stand, Dr. Deacon? Should Ndekei be tried and, if convicted, hanged? Or do you think that the defense he is going to run is sufficient and relevant in today’s new Kenya?”

  He sat down. The stampede was over.

  Natalie was sweating. There was no question but that the journalists had listened to Russell in a way different from how they had listened to Eleanor.

  Natalie stared at Russell. At first he wouldn’t meet her gaze, but when he did he looked at her hard, rigid, unblinking, defiant.

  Eleanor was deep in conversation with Daniel and with Jack, who had left his seat in the auditorium and mounted the stage. A buzz of conversation had broken out in the audience.

  Finally, Eleanor stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said
and paused, to give everyone a chance to quieten down.

  Jack went back to his seat.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I want you all to know that I still stand by all the comments—each and every one—that I made earlier, about the nature and importance and implications of our discoveries in Kihara Gorge. They are in my view—in our view—” and she motioned to the others on the stage with her, “quite independent of other, tragic events that have taken place during the digging season. Those events have very little, if anything, to do with science, and more to do with human folly, greed, and ambition. However, since Professor North has raised the matter—entirely unexpectedly and gratuitously, I might add, since he was not invited to this press conference in the first place, though we would have had no wish to keep him away—I will now satisfy the curiosity his remarks will inevitably have aroused among you.”

  And Eleanor went on to describe the murder of Richard Sutton, the reasons for it, what Natalie had witnessed, what defense Ndekei was expected to run, and why she had forced Russell North to leave the camp. And she had no choice but to speak about the Maasai threat to the gorge.

  When she finished the questions came thick and fast.

  “When is this trial?”

  “Is it a jury trial?”

  “Who is the judge? Is he black or white?”

  “What is the penalty for murder in Kenya?”

  “Have tribal defenses been used before in Kenya?”

  “Is Ndekei in jail now? Which one?”

  “Will you defend the gorge if the Maasai attack it, or occupy it? How?”

  “Dr. Deacon, did you really try to get Dr. Nelson to change her testimony?”

  “Maybe Dr. Nelson should answer that,” said another journalist.

  Eleanor turned in her seat. “Natalie?”

  All eyes were on her. A photographer’s light flashed somewhere.