A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa (3 page)

‘Everything arranged. Ally Dass will
be going on Thursday with some of his chaps to set up the kitchen, and Mr Hapula – the
club gardener – is taking his men to put up the tents. They'll be going in the
minibuses – oh, and my own gardener, Benjamin, has agreed to help too. He'll be
travelling with them. I've booked the big coach for Friday morning for the rest of
us, so we should all get up there before dark.'

‘Splendid,' said the Tiger.
‘Have you put your name down, Patel?'

‘Yes,' said Mr Patel,
‘though I don't think I'll be able to persuade my beloved wife and
helpmeet to come this year. “Seen one artiodactyl, seen 'em all,”
that's what she says.'

‘What about you, A.B.?'

‘Me? I'm the same – never could
tell the difference between a Tommy and Grant's. Still, as Father used to say,
they all taste the same in a vindaloo.'

‘But are you coming on the
safari?'

‘Oh yes, I'll be there.'
A. B. Gopez took a thoughtful sip from his glass. ‘Father used to love going on
safari – I'm
talking about the old days, of course. Very fond of
guns was Father. Spent a jolly fortune on fancy rifles, safari jackets, hats, spats, the
whole palaver. When I was growing up it seemed to be all he and his pals talked about –
potting the big five.'

‘Ah,' said Mr Patel,
‘elephant, rhino, hippo, lion and leopard.'

‘Hippo? Who ever heard of anyone
shooting a hippo? Buffalo, old chap. No more dangerous beast in the whole of
Africa.'

‘I'm sure it's
hippos,' said Mr Patel.

‘And I tell you no sportsman worth his
sola topi has ever hunted hippos. Sitting ducks. Large ducks, I grant you, but sitting
just the same.'

‘That's not what I
meant.'

‘Then why,' said Mr Gopez,
smacking his forehead with an exasperated palm, ‘did you say it?'

‘I meant, A.B., what I said. While I
am happy to stand corrected on the composition of the big five as far as shooting the
damned things goes, it remains a fact that more people in Africa are killed by hippos
than any other animal, so hippos are the most dangerous animals.'

Which is, if I may digress, a sentiment with
which my friend Kennedy would agree. Late one night he was driving home from Limuru in
the rain. It had been bucketing down for the last two months, this being the end of the
short rains. Four miles from Nairobi, where the Matunda River is meant to go under the
road, the water had been inches deep for days but his Land Rover had made the crossing a
hundred times. He changed down into low gear and put his right foot hard down on the
accelerator. Then
smartly up again and even harder down on the brake.
In a shower of mud and water his vehicle skidded to a stop only inches from a large
hippopotamus. I remember him saying that it was not so much its size, nor its presence
so near the centre of town, but the insouciance of the beast that particularly impressed
him.

‘My dear Patel,' said A. B.
Gopez, ‘though I hesitate to differ, when it comes to hippos I beg to do so.
Malik, old chap, you know something about birds and beasts. Wouldn't you agree
–?'

‘Tiger,' said Mr Malik.
‘Any chance of a quick game of billiards?'

‘Ah, hello, Petula darling – up
already?'

A slim, denim-clad figure stepped on to the
veranda. ‘Good morning, Daddy dear.'

Mr Malik had long had mixed feelings for his
daughter Petula – a mixture of wonder, love and admiration. The wonder had come first.
He could still remember that moment thirty-three years ago when he first held his baby
daughter in his arms, brown and pink and perfect. How wonderful that such a strong
little being was his own daughter. How miraculous that his dear wife had produced so
lovely a thing.

Love didn't come till later. He
wasn't surprised by that. It had been the same when his son Raj had arrived seven
years earlier. Nearly a year went by before he realized that he had fallen in love with
his first child, a love so strong that it almost hurt. So it was with Petula. And then,
as she started walking and talking, came the admiration. How clever a child she was, how
special. He loved watching his two children together. Raj had adored his little sister
from the moment she was born. Mr Malik would find him sitting by her crib gazing at her
with a look of pure devotion
while she slept or gurgled or cried.
Looking back on it, Raj had always been a very affectionate boy.

Yes, Petula. So intelligent, so strong. And
beautiful, just like her mother. He was lucky to have so lovely a daughter – though, if
only … He glanced over to where she sat across the table from him. If only she
wouldn't wear those jeans all the time. But at least she and Salman had finally
agreed a date for the wedding. He knew young people did things differently these days
but three years was a long engagement by any standard.

Petula picked up the bunch of bananas on the
veranda table.

‘Will you be coming into the factory
this morning?'

‘No, not today, dear – it's
Tuesday.'

‘Oh, of course. The bird
walk.'

For the last seven years, ever since his
first heart attack and strict instructions from his cardiologist to take things easy, Mr
Malik had increasingly left the day-to-day running of the Jolly Man Manufacturing
Company to Petula. His father might not have heeded the warning signs but he would not
make the same mistake. Besides, Petula was so good at managing and a whizz with all this
new technology – kept the firm right up to date with all the latest webs and nets and
that kind of thing. Mr Malik, who had never learned to use any machine more complicated
than a typewriter or a slide rule, now spent more time at the temple than the business,
and was less likely to visit suppliers and customers than visit the patients at the Aga
Khan Hospital. Ever since his son Raj had died there, he had gone to the hospital at
least twice a week.

Tuesday, though, was his birdwatching day. As
usual, he would drive to the museum where his fellow members of the East African
Ornithological Society assembled for their weekly walk. After the venue was decided – it
might be the arboretum or the agricultural station or even the patch of waste ground
behind the army barracks – Mr Malik could be counted on to offer a lift in his old green
Mercedes to whoever might need one. A regular passenger was his friend Thomas Nyambe. A
government driver in Kenya does not earn enough money to afford a car of his own. The
two friends were usually to be seen together on the bird walk talking about the things
they saw, Mr Malik making notes in the exercise book he always carried with him. Not all
the notes were strictly about birds, though. Many of them were pure gossip – government
gossip. And later that day Mr Malik would sit down at his typewriter and write the
latest instalment of the newspaper column he sent off anonymously each Tuesday afternoon
to the editor of the
Evening News
.

At first glance ‘Birds of a
Feather' appeared to be a column about the furred and feathered inhabitants of
Kenya. Those who read more deeply knew that it was in fact a satirical exposé of
Kenyan politics. For lion, read President; for hippopotamus, read Minister of
Agriculture and Tourism; for marabou read Minister of Defence; for python, read
Secretary of State for External Affairs. The herds of gazelle and zebra and wildebeest
that formed a backdrop to the goings-on were the tribal groups of Kenya. The popularity
of the column caused a regular spike in sales of the
Evening News
every
Wednesday, and much anguish to the ruling elite of the nation.
Over the
several years it had been going, more than one minister had been forced to resign – only
last month the Minister for the Interior. But while Mr Malik always wrote the column,
using the pen-name of Dadukwa – the black eagle who, seeing all but never seen, spreads
the news among the other animals – it was Thomas Nyambe who provided the information on
which it was based, as well as the traditional, if sometimes cryptic, proverb that Mr
Malik liked to put at the head of each column.

Like taxi drivers, government drivers often
get the feeling that they are invisible. Their passengers talk to each other or on their
mobile phones as if there was no one else in the car. So the drivers pick up all the
government gossip which, during periods of waiting around at the depot or outside
whatever building their passenger has directed them to, they naturally share with other
government drivers. Anything Thomas Nyambe overheard he later passed on to Mr Malik on
their Tuesday bird walks, where it would duly appear in the next ‘Birds of a
Feather' column. If only some government ministers realized that their drivers
were neither deaf, mute nor stupid, they would have been saved many a sleepless
night.

Petula pulled a small banana from the
bunch.

‘What about after the bird walk – will
you be coming to the factory then?'

‘I don't think I'll be
able to make it in at all today, dear. The chap's coming round about the marquee
at three, and after that I'd better drop into the club and see about the catering.
I still have quite a few details to clear up with Ally Dass. What about you? Are you
going in?'

‘Yes. Still haven't finished the
weekly statements. I'll be there all day. Oh, and I'll be home late – CI
meeting.'

Petula had recently joined the
anti-corruption organization Clarity International. How like her to try to change the
world.

‘Righty-ho, I won't wait up
then. Anything special tonight?'

‘A visit from the new Communications
Director – from Switzerland, apparently.'

She sat down beside him.

‘How did it go at the club last night?
Have you found out yet how many people have signed up for the safari?'

‘About twenty so far,' said Mr
Malik. ‘Still room for a few more. I'll give them another day or
two.'

‘Oh Daddy, all this work and worry.
Why not let someone younger do it for a change?'

Someone younger? Hadn't his new doctor
told him only last Friday that sixty-six was no age at all? Even as he was listening to
his doctor's words, though, Mr Malik couldn't help remembering the age at
which his own father had died.

Mr Malik had been away studying in England
when news came of his father's first heart attack. He hurried home, and home he
stayed. If he had any regrets about not finishing his degree he did not show them.
Instead of his studies at the London School of Economics, he now had the family firm.
Instead of the pubs of Clerkenwell and Fleet Street, he now had the Asadi Club. His
father had been Secretary of the club for nearly forty years. ‘Look after the club
– and look after your mother too,' was the last thing he had said to his son
before he
died of that second heart attack, swiftly following the
first.

Mr Malik glanced over to where his daughter
now sat beside him, nibbling at the small banana, and smiled. It had been four years ago
when she had met Salman at the Hunt Club Ball, the very one where he had danced that
dance with Rose Mbikwa, and at last she was getting married. Yes, the garden should do
nicely for their reception.

‘Oh, arranging the safari's no
trouble. I've done it so often now. You'll still be able to come,
won't you? And Salman?'

Petula paused and looked out into the
garden.

‘He phoned last night. He can't
get away till Friday now.' Petula's fiancé Salman worked in Dubai for
an international firm of accountants. ‘Looks like we'll have to drive up on
Saturday morning.'

‘Oh, that's a shame – but
you'll still have a couple of days.'

‘Yes. Anyway … bye,
Daddy.'

‘Goodbye, dear.'

Mr Malik watched his daughter pick up her
keys and heard her climb into her little Suzuki and drive away. That pause. Was it his
imagination, or was something wrong?

He took another sip of Nescafé and
looked out across the garden. The grass was its greenest, the frangipani and
bougainvillea were in multicoloured bloom, and in the flower beds at the end of the
garden the canna lilies were just about to flower. With a little judicious pruning now
the roses should be at their best for the wedding. Lately, Mr Malik had become very fond
of roses. Such a shame, though, about the mango trees.

It was under a mango tree on the coast down at
Malindi that, more than forty years ago, Mr Malik had proposed to his wife. Ever since
her death he had been trying to get one to grow in his garden at home. Everyone said
that Nairobi, though close to the equator, is too high for mangoes, but Mr Malik was at
heart an optimist. He was sure there must be one variety of the many hundreds that are
grown around the world that would flourish there. Over the last dozen years Mr Malik had
collected seeds from any variety he could find that might have a chance. He would clean
each seed and score the tough seedcase with an old chisel, then put it in a jam jar half
full of water. As soon as the seed sprouted he would plant it in the special mango bed
behind the kitchen. Some had survived and grown into fair-sized trees – but though one
or two had flowered, not one had ever produced a fruit.

My friend Kennedy told me that when he was
thirteen he had the idea of trying to open a mango seed. After attempting to hack it
open with his mother's bread knife and crack it open with his father's
hammer he was no nearer his goal, but he wasn't going to be beaten. It was time to
bring in the big guns. He placed the slippery seed on a chopping block and picked up the
seven-pound sledgehammer. Hell no! Why not use the fourteen-pounder? Not taking his eye
off the seed, he swung that hammer high over his shoulder and down on to the target.
Bullseye. The mango seed shot out from under the sledgehammer like a rocket, and he told
me that he reckoned it might have kept going all the way to the greenhouse if it had not
met his right shin. If you have ever had a pain so sudden and intense that you
aren't even able to scream, he
told me, you will know exactly how
it felt. The agonized roar that started in his solar plexus got as far as his
Adam's apple but just couldn't find a way out past his clenched teeth. He
might, he said, have made a little squeak – a small yip, at most. Tears rose into his
eyes. Time seemed to stop. As it turned out, his leg was not permanently damaged. The
egg-sized swelling lasted a couple of weeks, the bruise was gone in a month. But that
mango seed left an indelible impression on his mind – and I pass his tale on to you for
what it's worth.

Mr Malik put down his cup. A dog barked.
There seemed to be more and more dogs in the neighbourhood these days – for security,
people said. Petula had tried to persuade him to get one, but Mr Malik had always
maintained that guard dogs were like guns – more dangerous to their owners than to any
potential wrongdoer. While there were bars on the windows of his house – which would, no
doubt, keep out the average burglar – they had not been put there to keep out men. They
were there to keep out monkeys. Nairobi's few parks, but mainly its suburban
streets and gardens, provide food and shelter for hundreds of monkeys which come in two
varieties – the common vervet and the Sykes. Both are about the size of a cat, but the
vervet is leaner and lighter. If you are still in any doubt, you can recognize the male
vervet by its bright-blue scrotum. Both species made occasional visits to Number 12
Garden Lane and, being possessed of the usual simian acquisitiveness, happily reached
into any open window to extract whatever they could get their monkey mitts on. Hence the
bars, and the necessity of keeping small objects at least the length of a monkey's
arm away from them.

From a croton tree at Number 12 Garden Lane
came a familiar sound. Even now Mr Malik still got a strange feeling in his bowels
whenever he heard the loud three-note call of the large brown bird common in many parts
of Africa called the hadada. How long had it been since he had gone on his first weekly
bird walk of the East African Ornithological Society, led by the lovely Rose Mbikwa? How
long since he had danced that dance with her at the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball? Four years.
Ah well, thought Mr Malik, getting to his feet, it wasn't as if he was a good
dancer. In his dreams he glided over the dance floor like Fred Astaire; in real life he
feared he looked more like a waltzing warthog. It was time to find the binoculars and
get on his way. Even if Rose Mbikwa was still away in Scotland, he didn't want to
keep his friends at the bird walk waiting.