“Come in, Informer,” I said. “What is the word?”
“Jambo, my brother,” the Informer said. He was closely muffled in his shawl and he removed his porkpie hat. “There is a man from beyond Laitokitok waiting to see you. He claims that his Shamba was destroyed by elephants.”
“Do you know him?”
“No, brother.”
“Leave and send him in.”
The Shamba owner came in and bowed at the door and said, “Good morning, sir.”
I saw he had the town Mau Mau style of haircut, parted on the side with the part cut out with a razor. But that could mean nothing.
“These elephants?” I asked.
“They came last night and destroyed my Shamba,” he said. “I believe it is your duty to control them. I would like you to come tonight and kill one to drive them away.”
And leave the camp unguarded and this nonsense on, I thought. “Thank you for the report on the elephants,” I said. “A plane is arriving here shortly and we will take you with us and make a reconnaissance of the damage done to your Shamba and attempt to locate the elephants. You will show us your Shamba and the exact damage done.”
“But I have never flown, sir.”
“You’ll fly today. And you will find it both interesting and instructive.”
“But I have never flown, sir. And I could be ill.”
“Sick,” I said. “Not ill. One must respect the English language. Sick is the word. But paper containers will be provided. Aren’t you interested in seeing your property from the air?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It will be most interesting. It will be almost as though you had a map of your domain. You will have a knowledge of its topographical features and its contours impossible to acquire in any other way.”
“Yes, sir,” he said. I was feeling a little bit ashamed but there was the haircut and the camp had enough stuff in it to be well worth a raid in force and if Arap Meina and Ngui and I were sucked off from it on an elephant and bull story it would be easy to rush.
Then he tried once more not knowing that each time he made it a little worse.
“I do not think that I should fly, sir.”
“Look,” I said. “Every one of us here has flown or has wished to fly. It is a privilege for you to see your own country from the air. Have you never envied the birds? Have you never wished to be the eagle or even the hawk?”
“No, sir,” he said. “But today I will fly.”
Then I thought even if he is our enemy or a crook or merely wants an elephant killed for meat he has made the correct and dignified decision. I stepped out and told Arap Meina that this man was under arrest and not to inform him but guard him properly and not allow him to leave the camp nor to look into the tents and that we were taking him up in the ndege.
“He is guarded,” Arap Meina said. “Do I fly too?”
“No. You flew enough last time. Ngui flies today.”
Ngui grinned too and said, “Mzuri sana.”
“Mzuri,” Arap Meina said, and grinned. I told him I would send the Shamba owner out and I asked Ngui to go down and check on the wind sock and spook any animals off the homemade landing strip in the meadow.
Mary came out to the mess tent in her fresh bush kit that Mwindi had washed and ironed for her. She looked as new and young as the morning and noticed that I had drunk beer with or before breakfast.
“I thought you only did that when G.C. was here,” she said.
“No. Often I drink it in the morning before you’re awake. I’m not writing and it’s the only time of day it’s cold.”
“Did you find out anything about the lion from all those people who were here talking?”
“No. There’s no news of the lion. He didn’t talk in the night.”
“You did,” she said. “You were talking to some girl that wasn’t me. What was it that there was no remedy for?”
“I’m sorry I talked in my sleep.”
“You were talking in Spanish,” she said. “It was all about there being no remedy.”
“Must be no remedy then. I’m sorry I don’t remember the dream.”
“I never asked you to be faithful to me in dreams. Are we going to hunt the lion?”
“Honey, what’s the matter with you? We agreed we wouldn’t hunt the lion even if he came down. We were going to lay off him and let him get confident.”
“How do you know he won’t go away?”
“He’s smart, honey. He always moves on after he kills cattle. But he gets confident after he kills game. I’m trying to think in his head.”
“Maybe you ought to think in your own head a little.”
“Honey,” I said. “Would you maybe order breakfast? There’s Tommy liver and bacon.”
She called Nguili and ordered her breakfast very graciously.
“What were you smiling about in your sleep after you had your tea?”
“Oh, that was my wonderful dream. I met the lion and he was so nice to me and so cultured and polite. He’d been at Oxford, he said, and he spoke with practically a BBC voice. I was sure I had met him before someplace and then suddenly he ate me up.”
“We live in very difficult times,” I said. “I guess when I saw you smiling was before he ate you up.”
“It must have been,” she said. “I’m sorry I was cross. He ate me up so suddenly. He never gave any sign that he disliked me. He didn’t roar or anything like the Magadi lion.”
I kissed her and then Nguili brought in the beautiful small slices of browned liver with upcountry bacon spread across them, fried potatoes and coffee and tinned milk and a dish of stewed apricots.
“Please have one piece of the liver and bacon,” Mary said. “Are you going to have a rough day, darling?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Will I be able to fly?”
“It doesn’t look like it. But maybe if there’s time.”
“Is there a lot of work?”
I told her what we had to do and she said, “I’m so sorry I came in cross. It was just the lion eating me up I think. Eat the liver and bacon and finish the beer, honey, and take it easy until the ndege comes. Nothing has reached the no hay remedio stage. Don’t ever even think it in your sleep.”
“Don’t you ever think about the lion eating you up either.”
“I never do in the daytime. I’m not that sort of girl.”
“I’m not a no hay remedio boy, really.”
“Yes. You are a little bit. But you’re happier now than when I first knew you, aren’t you?”
“I’m truly happy with you.”
“And you’re happy with everything else too. My, it will be wonderful to see Willie again.”
“He’s much better than either of us.”
“But we can try to be better,” Mary said.
We did not know what time the plane would be in nor even if it would surely come. There had been no confirmation of the signal the young police officer had sent but I expected the plane from one o’clock on; although if there was any weather building over the Chulus or on the eastern flank of the Mountain, Willie might come earlier. I got up and looked at the weather. There was some cloud over the Chulus but the Mountain looked good.
“I wish I could fly today,” Mary said.
“You’ll fly plenty, honey. Today’s just a job.”
“But will I fly over the Chulus?”
“I promise. We’ll fly anywhere you want.”
“After I kill the lion I’d like to fly into Nairobi to get the things for Christmas. Then I want to be back in time to get a tree to have it beautiful. We picked out a fine tree before that rhino came. It will be really beautiful but I have to get all the things for it and everybody’s presents.”
“After we kill the lion Willie can come down with the Cessna and you can see the Chulus and we’ll go way up the Mountain if you want and we’ll check the property and then you go back to Nairobi with him.”
“Do we have enough mon
ey for that?”
“Sure.”
“I want you to learn and to know about everything so we won’t have just wasted the money. Truly I don’t care what you do as long as it’s good for you. All I want is that you love me the most.”
“I love you the most.”
“I know it. But please don’t do other people harm.”
“Everybody does other people harm.”
“You shouldn’t. I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t hurt other people or spoil their lives. And don’t say no hay remedio. That’s too easy. When it is all fantastic and you all make up your lies and live in this strange world you all have, then it is just fantastic and charming sometimes and I laugh at you. I feel superior to such nonsense and to the unrealness. Please try to understand me, because I’m your brother too. That dirty Informer isn’t your brother.”
“He invented that.”
“Then suddenly the nonsense gets so real that it is like having somebody chop your arm off. Chop it off truly. Not like chop it off in a dream. I mean chop it off truly the way Ngui uses a panga. I know Ngui is your true brother.” I didn’t say anything.
“Then when you speak so harshly to that girl. When you speak like that it’s like watching Ngui butcher. It’s not the lovely life we have where everyone has fun.”
“Haven’t you been having fun?”
“I never was as happy in my life, ever, ever. And now that you have confidence in my shooting, I’m really happy today and confident except I only hope it will last.”
“It will last.”
“But you see what I mean about how it suddenly becomes so different from the lovely dream way it is? The way it is when it is like a dream or the loveliest part of when we were both children? We being here with the Mountain every day more beautiful than anything and you people with your jokes and everyone happy. Everyone is so loving to me and I love them too. And then there is this other thing.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s all a part of the same thing, kitten. Nothing is as simple as it looks. I’m not really rude to that girl. That’s just being sort of formal.”
“Please never be rude to her in front of me.”
“I won’t.”
“Nor to me in front of her.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re not going to take her up to fly in the aircraft are you?”
“No, honey. I promise you that truly.”
“I wish Pop were here or that Willie would come.”
“So do I,” I said, and went out and looked at the weather again. There was a little more cloud over the Chulus but the shoulder of the Mountain was still clear.
“You’re not going to drop that Shamba owner out of the aircraft are you? You and Ngui?”
“Good God, no. Will you believe me that I hadn’t thought of it?”
“I’d thought of it when I heard you talking to him this morning.”
“Who’s getting to have bad thoughts now?”
“It’s not that you think things so bad. All of you do things in that sudden awful way as though there were no consequences.”
“Honey, I think a lot about consequences.”
“But there’s that strange suddenness and the inhumanity and the cruel jokes. There’s death in every joke. When will it start being nice and lovely again?”
“Right away. This nonsense only goes on for a few days more. We don’t think those people are coming down here and they’ll be caught wherever they go.”
“I want it to be the way it was when every morning we woke and knew something wonderful would happen. I hate this hunting men.”
“This isn’t hunting men, honey. You’ve never seen that. That’s what goes on up in the North. Here, everybody is our friend.”
“Not in Laitokitok.”
“Yes, but those people will be picked up. Don’t worry about that.”
“I only worry about all of you when you are bad. Pop was never bad.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I mean bad the way you and G.C. are. Even you and Willie are bad when you’re together.”
4
I WENT OUTSIDE and checked the weather. There was just the steady building up of cloud over the Chulus and the flank of the Mountain was clear. As I watched I thought I heard the plane. Then I was sure and called out for the hunting car. Mary came out and we scrambled for the car and started out from camp and on the motor car tracks through the new green grass for the landing strip. The game trotted and then galloped out of our way. The aircraft buzzed the camp and then it came down, clean silver and blue, lovely wings shining, with the big flaps down and for a moment we were keeping almost abreast of it before Willie, smiling out through the Plexiglas as the blue of the prop passed us, touched the aircraft down so that she landed strutting gently like a crane and then wheeled around to come fanning up to us.
Willie opened the door and smiled, “Hello, you chaps.” He looked for Mary and said, “Get the lion yet, Miss Mary?”
He spoke in a sort of swinging lilting voice that moved with the rhythm that a great boxer has when he is floating in and out with perfect, unwasting movements. His voice had a sweetness that was true but I knew it could say the most deadly things without a change of tone.
“I couldn’t kill him, Willie,” Miss Mary called. “He hasn’t come down yet.”
“Pity,” said Willie. “I have to get a few odds and ends out here. Ngui can give me a hand. Pots of mail for you, Miss Mary. Papa has a few bills. Here’s the mail.”
He tossed the big manila envelope to me and I caught it.
“Good to see you retain some sign of basic reflexes,” Willie said. “G.C. sent his love. He’s on his way.”
I handed the mail to Mary and we commenced to unload the plane and put the packages and boxes into the hunting car.
“Better not do any actual physical labor, Papa,” Willie said. “Don’t tire yourself. Remember we’re saving you for the Main Event.”
“I heard it was canceled.”
“Still on I believe,” Willie said. “Not that I’d pay to see it.”
“Even you and Willie,” Mary said.
“Come on let’s go to campi,” she said to Willie.
“Coming, Miss Mary,” Willie said. He came down now in his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his blue serge shorts and his low brogues and smiled lovingly at Miss Mary as he took her hand. He was handsome with fine merry eyes and an alive tanned face and dark hair and shy without any awkwardness. He was the most natural and best-mannered person I have ever known. He had all the sureness of a great pilot. He was modest and he was doing what he loved in the country he loved.
We had never asked each other any questions except about aircraft and flying. Everything else was supposed to be understood. I assumed he had been born in Kenya because he spoke such fine Swahili and was gentle and understanding with Africans but it never occurred to me to ask him where he was born and he might have come out to Africa as a boy for all I knew.
We drove slowly into camp in order not to raise dust and got out under the big tree between our tents and the lines. Miss Mary went over to see Mbebia the cook to have him make lunch at once and Willie and I walked over to the mess tent. I opened a bottle of beer that was still cold in the canvas bag that hung against the tree and poured one in each of our glasses.
“What’s the true gen, Papa,” Willie asked. I told him.
“I saw him,” Willie said. “Old Arap Meina seemed to have him under fairly close arrest. He does look a little bit the type, Papa.”
“Well, we’ll check his Shamba. Maybe he has a Shamba and maybe they had elephant trouble.”
“We’ll check the elephants too. That will save time and then we’ll drop him off here and then have a general look around on the other thing. I’m taking Ngui. If there are elephant and we have to work it out Meina knows all the country and he and Ngui and I will do it and Ngui and I will have made the recon.”
“It all seems sou
nd,” Willie said. “You fellows do keep quite busy here for a quiet area. Here comes Miss Mary.”
Mary came in delighted with the prospect of the meal.
“We’re having Tommy chops, mashed potatoes and a salad. And it will be here right away. And a surprise. Thank you so much for finding the Campari, Willie. I’m going to have one now. Will you?”
“No thank you, Miss Mary. Papa and I are drinking a beer.”
“Willie, I wish I could go. But anyway I’ll have all the lists made and write the checks and the letters ready and after I kill the lion I’ll fly in with you to Nairobi to get the things for Christmas.”
“You must be shooting very well, Miss Mary, from that beautiful meat I saw hanging in the cheesecloth.”
“There’s a haunch for you and I told them to change it around carefully to be in the shade all day and then wrap it well for you just before you go back.”
“How is everything at the Shamba, Papa?” Willie asked.
“My father-in-law has some sort of combination chest and stomach ailment,” I said. “I’ve been treating it with Sloan’s liniment. Sloan’s came to him as rather a shock the first time I rubbed it in.”
“Ngui told him it was part of Papa’s religion,” Mary said. “They all have the same religion now and it’s reached a point where it is basically awful. They all eat kipper snacks and drink beer at eleven o’clock and explain it is part of their religion. I wish you’d stay here Willie and tell me what really goes on. They have horrible slogans and dreadful secrets.”
“It’s Gitchi Manitou the Mighty versus All Others,” I explained to Willie. “We retain the best of various other sects and tribal law and customs. But we weld them into a whole that all can believe. Miss Mary coming from the Northern Frontier Province, Minnesota, and never having been to the Rocky Mountains until we were married is handicapped.”
“Papa has everybody but the Mohammedans believing in the Great Spirit,” Mary said. “The Great Spirit is one of the worst characters I’ve ever known. I know Papa makes up the religion and makes it more complicated every day. He and Ngui and the others. But the Great Spirit frightens even me sometimes.”
True at First Light Page 8
