Song Beneath the Tides

by Beverley Birch

  And I remember how, between one dawn and the next, the fever struck Alvaro down.

  For a time after we buried him, a kind of peace reigned in these walls, if you can call it peace when Death looked each of us in the face.

  There was talk he died with a secret on his lips that he seemed desperate to tell. Talk of that secret, rumour of a hidden thing, gave purpose to a few, and then that talk died with them.

  All there, buried in my memory! Word by word I conjured it again for Jabari, each moment rising as if it lived again.

  Jabari asked me if I knew the mainland town. I could tell him of dreams of walking there, of roaming its forests, of seeking Her. I told him only that in the last years I seldom set foot on mainland shores, for we Portuguese risked our lives by venturing there. Only Dom Alvaro went, and only with full guard.

  ‘The townspeople have only hatred for us. They look for any chance to harm us. Such ills they suffered at the hands of Alvaro and the soldiers of this fort! My father’s journals rage against it, you can read it there. I rejoice that you are here, Jabari, but why throw your fate with ours? Those are your people, there – our enemies in the camp, on the ships, in the town! You too must hate us!’

  ‘Brother, I choose my people. I will not have them forced on me by quarrels or alliances made by others. Deeds speak to me. Steady hearts. I did not ask Badru and Rahidi for help, yet when they knew I came to find you, they stood with me. Such are my people. Your besieging enemies are not.’

  ‘But our besiegers are Muslim, as you!’

  ‘True. Arabs from Oman, many, many weeks sailing north from here. They have their own quarrel with your countrymen, for deeds done by the ships and soldiers of Portugal in their own lands and seas. They come to avenge them. They promise the people of the mainland town here to rid this region and the seas of you.’

  He seemed to think long and hard for some minutes, and then he went on, ‘But think on this, my brother. What of Saaduma, Chane, Omar, Winda, Neema, Goma – Muslims all. Trapped here, with you. What of them?’

  I thought of how, when the siege began, Alvaro barred them from leaving, on pain of instant death. Yet when Alvaro died, Fernando gave them freedom to surrender to our enemy and save their own lives.

  They did not take that freedom. They did not leave.

  I told Jabari this.

  ‘And why?’ Jabari answered. ‘Because their bonds with men and women inside the fort were already tied. Saaduma loves Winda. Winda, Neema, Goma stayed for the children – orphaned, abandoned children of your people. Of Portugal.’

  I had not seen that. The answer silenced me.

  ‘But I see that your besiegers have truly slackened guard,’ he said, ‘as you have all remarked.’

  Eight days they have not fired on us. Two nights Saaduma and Winda safely fished and returned; Jabari, Badru and Rahidi reached us in their boat unchallenged.

  I spoke my fears to Jabari, that our enemies seek to persuade us they are careless and make us slacken Watch. Yet all the while they plot an attack now, when our defence is lowest.

  We are now only twelve: six men, three women and three children. No more have died, though I am afraid: in the last hour, Neema, she who appointed herself guardian of the children since they lost their mothers, and so tenaciously clung to life for them, she coughs most dreadfully. Baby Jorge is very weak.

  They number many hundreds, a thousand, if the numbers of their ships be counted.

  ‘Jabari, if they attack, we cannot hold the fort against them! I truly fear the dark of night will bring—’

  ‘These walls will not be your tomb. We will not wait for them to find you dead, or put you to the sword, my brother.’ He clasped my hand in a gesture of promise. ‘This we will do, now. Badru has travelled often to this mainland town; arriving there would cause no curiosity. He offers to go tonight and mingle with the townspeople. He will uncover any talk of attack! And we here will prepare. Brother, take heart! Call to your blessed Spirit of Hope and take heart!’

  Badru left in the darkest hour, lowered by rope from the east parapet. We at once lost sight of him in shadow. He will retrieve the boat from the cave below, and travel north into the mangroves to reach the mainland, at dawn to walk into the town by the landward gate.

  We wait, and in our different ways, we pray for him – for in the strangeness of these times locked here together, Muslim and Christian are bonded together against those who would slaughter us. I seem to hear my father’s voice talking with Fernando. How often they condemned the diabolical ways of our dead captain, Dom Alvaro. ‘We claim some God-given Christian right to enslave Muslim and Heathen thus! It is tyranny to attack these lands! Sorely will we be punished for it!’

  I went to the chapel and prayed that no man or woman learns that Badru has chosen friendship with us, that he is a spy for us. There would be no hope for him.

  Seventeen

  A restless night, dream-wrecked, coiling, binding cobwebs of sound . . .

  It left her wrung out, distracted. Everything ebbed and flowed through her: yesterday – the legend, Mzee Kitwana, Makena’s talk, forts, cannons. Most of all, Leli, Kisiri.

  Just one night since we landed on Kisiri again? It felt like a lifetime. What did we find – what do those marks mean, that smell?

  She rested her head against the car seat. If only she could be with Leli. Now. Talk about it with him. Even just see him.

  She caught a fragment of Ben’s chatter, in the back seat. He was telling Carole, ‘. . . engines really early this morning, an’ it was two boats in our creek, just sitting!’

  For a minute Carole just guided the car across the narrow tarmac’s bumpy cracks, splayed out like crooked spider’s legs.

  Then she remarked, ‘Well, like I said, let’s have a look at this Tundani place today. Shanza people think it’s the root of all this. Maybe it is. Seize the time, eh? I’ve no chance of more time off for a week.’

  ‘These boats are around all the time now. Like, everything’s in secret!’ Jack said.

  Carole glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. ‘Mmm . . . boats up our creek last night too, when you were sleeping—’ She broke off as a crowded bus halted ahead of them. Two women clambered down: one balanced a suitcase on her head, the other, heavily pregnant, propped a cloth bundle on hers. They moved serenely off the road and turned onto a murrum track, walking up the middle, kicking up little puffs of red dust with their bare feet.

  Ally watched them curiously.

  Carole followed her gaze. ‘They’re heading for a village. That’s also the track to the school, two miles up. All the children for ten miles round go there. The new tarmac road to the new Tundani hotel comes in the other side and goes right past. People’ve asked for something to be done about this old road for years – nothing happens. All of a sudden, a spanking new shiny two-lane highway all fifty miles from the airport to Tundani – straight there, no problem!’

  Ally squinted through the glare at the red ribbon of track. It wound in snaking curves, rising slowly through maize plantations into the distant blue-green haze of low hills. Further away, the track was scattered with other walkers. Like Leli, Huru, Eshe, Koffi, Jina, she thought, and Lumbwi, Pili, Mosi, even the tiny ones just starting school – all of them walking all the way from Shanza, every day. Five miles there, five miles back.

  ‘Bet they bunk off,’ Jack commented. ‘That kind of walk!’

  ‘Actually, no,’ came from Carole. ‘Put you lot to shame, they do. Benjy, stop kneeling up! Sit down properly back there, and put your seat belt back on!’

  The bus ahead rumbled on its way. Carole followed at a sedate distance. The dilapidated tarmac meandered on through scrubby bush.

  Ben plumped down in the seat with a snort of frustration. ‘So when’re we going on safari like you said? See the lions and that?’

  ‘We’ll do it, promise! But we
have to go fifty miles inland to the nearest game area. Lion, leopard, cheetah, elephant, rhino, hippo, impala, if we’re lucky we’ll see them all, and more. But it’s very wild, very hot, and they’re dangerous, we can’t just stroll about there, Benjy.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen pictures. Hope there’s rhino.’ He grabbed the binoculars from Jack and scanned to and fro enthusiastically.

  The dry grassland slid by, dotted with acacia trees, here and there a small cultivated patch. Another few miles on, the road curved closer to the coast and lush cashew and mango trees began to crowd in; glimpses of white dunes, the sea’s gleam. A lot more people walking here, wandering randomly across the road, ignoring bus and car.

  ‘All heading for Tundani, probably. We’ll reach it in a moment,’ Carole said. ‘Oh!’ She slowed suddenly. ‘Look at that!’

  They’d topped a rise. Ahead, a patchwork of brown shapes sprawled into the distance. The car rolled closer. Brown shapes became roofs – an assortment of cardboard boxes, corrugated iron, stretches of sacking. Motley partitions, propped, hung, tied together, broke up the crowded space between. A pall of smoke hung to one side, and a poisonous, sulphurous stink.

  ‘I don’t believe it! A month back it was a quiet little crossroads!’ The shock in Carole’s voice made it hoarse. ‘Tea shacks, a bus stop . . .’

  Ally wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that foul smell?’

  ‘Sewage, I think. Burning rubbish.’ Carole stopped the car and got out. ‘In Ulima there’s a whole valley like this, you know – where Collins and the others come from. Sticks, stones, metal tins stuck with mud, plastic sheets, anything to give shelter. But that’s been there for years, evolving, putting down roots. This . . . Already!’

  They pushed on at a snail’s pace through goats and hawkers and curio sellers. Small boys jiggled wood carvings of animals across the windscreen and tapped at the windows. Ally looked for Collins, Dedan, but it was a sea of strangers, a sea of blankets spread with pots, baskets, necklaces, bracelets, shells . . .

  Why does Collins think they’ll sell anything here when everyone else is trying to do the same?

  ‘Of course we’ve come in the back entrance,’ Carole said sarcastically. ‘Tourists are spared this view, and enter by the front door on the new road. When we get to the middle, there’ll be fancy shops – bags, sandals, kikois, kangas bought for nothing from one of these local stalls, tagged with a price twenty times more! And Collins still won’t have the price of a meal and Saka walks thirty miles to the nearest doctor!’

  Ahead, a giant arch straddled the road and proclaimed WELCOME TO TUNDANI PARADISE VILLAGE; beside it, a large car park and a block of new pink-washed concrete shops, not yet open, and the Baobab Cafe, that was, under striped umbrellas.

  ‘Collins!’ Ben yelled, just as Ally spotted him too, lurking between two parked cars. He was watching something across the road. She leaned out of the window and called. He turned, but only to hiss, ‘Do not make us seen! We are invisible,’ flapping his hand urgently. Then he dodged through the traffic and joined another boy: Dedan, she guessed, but couldn’t be sure. They’d melted away.

  Carole eased the car into a parking space. ‘Hope they’re not up to something that’ll land them in trouble.’ She looked pointedly at Jack.

  ‘Just asked them to scout about – see if the boats round Kisiri and our creek are from here,’ he answered.

  ‘Well, then I hope you’re not getting them into trouble,’ she countered. ‘Are you?’

  Jack raised an eyebrow at Ally. She got out of the car and checked all directions. No Collins or Dedan in sight.

  ‘They’re used to living in a city.’ Jack joined her. ‘They live on the streets, right? Probably ducking and diving out of trouble all day.’

  That isn’t the point, Ally thought. She pictured Collins’ thin, earnest, too grown-up face, and eager Dedan following Collins’ every instruction. And at the beach camp: Joseph and Grace eating remnants of the night’s feast, chattering to Ben. Dedan and Collins pushing food into their pockets, slinging cloth bundles of shells over their shoulders. How they’d given the thumbs-up to Jack and set off for the forest path to the road.

  ‘Let’s hope they spot the boats that’ve been hanging about here,’ Jack had said then. ‘Then we can tell that policeman, Rutere, in case it’s . . . well, wrong.’

  Collins’ll take his responsibilities to Shanza and Jack very seriously. He’ll be so desperate to please everyone!

  She had a quiver of apprehension. She surveyed the scene carefully once more. The two boys were nowhere.

  ‘Drink first.’ Carole ushered them pointedly away from the glossy Baobab Cafe and stopped by a cardboard sign in English: EXTRA EXTRA COLD DRINKS VERY SPECIAL EXTRA EXTRA. A handful of bottles floated in a small, water-filled oil drum, shaded by sheets of cardboard. A tiny boy jumped from his seat on a wooden crate. He doled out the drinks, counted the coins, fetched more crates and turned them upside down, motioning them to sit. Satisfied, he retired behind his oil drum and counted the coins again.

  Their seat gave them a long view of the beach side of the roadway. A broad sweep of silk-smooth new tarmac flanked by gigantic peppermint-green concrete flower pots, all empty, the white and green block of the hotel at the end. On one side, scaffolding hid the construction, the other side was already open: arches led through potted palms and urns trailing scarlet bougainvillea and white frangipani. They were topped by a tower with a combination of minarets and crenellations, like some weird mix of mosque and castle.

  ‘Looks like peppermint ice cream with blotches of raspberry jam!’ Carole said.

  ‘Or a stage-set for Sinbad the Sailor or the Arabian Nights,’ Jack offered. ‘Come on, Benjy, let’s go in – you coming, Ally? Don’t run off and leave us,’ he told Carole.

  ‘I’ll be along in a minute,’ Carole murmured. ‘Can’t face it yet.’

  It was all air conditioning, polished stone floors, racks of glossy brochures: glass-bottom boats to see the coral, deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, water-skiing. Jack pocketed a handful under the disapproving eye of the receptionist.

  Ally thought of Eshe’s sister who wanted to work here. But this receptionist wasn’t from Shanza or anywhere like that. She’d stepped out of a fashion magazine. Her heels clacked on the stone floor. Her nails clacked too – like purple claws when she handed over the price list Jack requested. Though only after she’d first snapped, ‘Why do you want it?’ then shut up when Carole pushed through the glass doors to join them.

  ‘Thirty-two thousand shillings!’ squawked Ben, inspect-ing it.

  ‘That’s two hundred and fifty pounds a night.’ Jack showed Carole.

  ‘It is less if you book many nights,’ the receptionist said sweetly to Carole.

  ‘How much of the hotel is open?’ Carole attempted a retaliatory sweetness.

  ‘In the Kaskazi wing, twenty rooms, madam. Very luxurious. Sixty rooms open soon in the Kusi wing. The swimming pool is beautiful. Non-residents welcome, madam.’ She smiled encouragingly. ‘Many interesting places to be. The Jahazi bar. The Mtepe cocktail lounge. I will get you a plan.’ With a flourish she produced a brochure.

  ‘Our seafood is caught by our very own spear fishermen and served in the local manner. We have our own bank and hairdresser inside the hotel. We can also make very special arrangements for specially unusual expeditions. Tailor-made for just you!’ She smiled brightly. ‘We have other hotels, you can move from one to the other. We are very big! We are making new hotels everywhere!’

  ‘Any near Shanza?’ Jack demanded.

  ‘Marisa!’ came sharply from the back office. The woman who poked her head out of the door was no longer wearing the sunglasses she’d had in the car, and Ally remembered her hair differently. But it was the same one, Ally’s certainty reinforced by the way the woman halted on seeing Ally and Jack, gave a rapid once-over for Carole and Ben,
and withdrew sharply.

  ‘It’s her!’ Ally kept her voice low. ‘Carole, she came to the house with that man.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Jack said pointedly. ‘Can we speak to that person in there? She wanted to speak to my aunt. So, here’s my aunt.’

  The receptionist’s expression changed from politely helpful to startled. She hesitated, and went into the office. There was an exchange of words, high-pitched and loud, then irate, and then she was propelled out again, the door slammed shut behind her. She came forward, pursing her mouth. ‘You make a mistake. My colleague did not come to your house. My colleague is making an important telephone call and cannot speak to you. If you have questions you speak to the owner.’

  ‘And he is?’ demanded Carole.

  The purple fingernails tapped a leaflet on the desk. ‘Mr Heinrek. You must make an appointment. He is very busy.’

  Ally picked up the leaflet. It advertised game trips to see ‘the big five’ – lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, buffalo. A picture of a man on the front, the face obscured by the brim of a white hat. Absurdly large, and definitely memorable. He posed – one foot on a rock, elbow on his knee. A familiar red Land Rover jutted into the picture behind.

  She showed the others.

  ‘It’s the one who came to Shanza!’ squeaked Ben.

  ‘He’d have his gun in the picture too, if hunting wasn’t illegal,’ Jack muttered. ‘Bet he’s one the inspector’s got his eye on.’

  ‘I most certainly will see Mr Heinrek,’ Carole announced to the receptionist. ‘My name is Carole Seaton. Please make sure you pass it on. Mr Heinrek has sent people to my house. I want to know why.’

  ‘It was her!’ Ally insisted, outside. ‘Why say it wasn’t?’

  ‘Doesn’t want anyone knowing she’s from the hotel,’ Carole said.

  They stood, ringed by petal-shaped swimming pools and sun beds sporting a few guests, lobster red and stupefied by the heat. Others lay under umbrellas. A few floated in the pools. No one on the beach below or in the sea – though three gleaming sharp-nosed powerboats bobbed by a bright-painted pontoon extending from the hotel. Ben squinted through bino­culars and read the names. Cool Running. Lucky Star. Blue Marlin. In the distance a boat whined across the bay, a water skier rising onto skis, bouncing a few yards before collapsing in an arc of white spray.