The Elephant's Tale (3 page)

Martine tried to picture her grandmother, who loved nature more than life itself, in a poky city flat far from the wilderness of Sawubona. She was upset with herself for being so selfish. Devastated at the thought of losing her home and almost everything she loved twice in one year, she’d forgotten that it must be a thousand times harder for her grandmother.

“We can’t just give up,” she said. “There must be something we can do. Surely a judge would understand that a lot of the animals in the game reserve are like Jemmy. They’re orphans or they’ve had a really horrible life and they need us to protect and love them.”

Her grandmother grimaced. “Unfortunately, when it comes to property, judges tend to see things in black and white. I had hoped that the signature on the will produced by Mr. James would turn out to be a forgery, but my lawyer called in a handwriting expert and he assured us it’s genuine.”

Tendai knocked at the door. Gwyn Thomas ushered the game warden in with a sad smile before continuing: “No, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”

Martine looked at Ben. He was wearing the expression he always got when the two of them were in a crisis. She could see him trying to figure out a solution.

He said, “What if there was another will—one written more recently than the one held by Mr. James—leaving Sawubona to you? Wouldn’t that change everything?”

Gwyn Thomas nodded. “It would. But if there was a more recent will, Henry would have told me about it or I would have found it when I was going through his papers after . . . after he passed away.”

There was an awkward silence. Nobody wanted to point out the obvious, that if Henry hadn’t told her about the will held by Mr. James, he might not have told her about other things.

Martine thought about the grandfather she’d never know. He’d been killed trying to save the white giraffe’s mother and father from poachers, leaving her grandmother heartbroken and without her companion of f orty-two years. She said again, “We can’t just give up. We have to fight.”

“I agree,” said her grandmother. “But I’m at a loss to think exactly how we fight.”

“Would you like me to break the news about Sawubona to the game reserve staff?” offered the game warden.

“Thank you, Tendai. I couldn’t face it myself, but it would be most helpful if you would.”

“In the weeks before Mr. Thomas . . . passed away, did he do or say anything unusual?” asked Ben. “Did he ever seem worried or agitated?”

“Quite the reverse,” Gwyn Thomas told him. “He was happier than I’d ever seen him. He was very excited about the future of the game reserve and had all sorts of projects on the go. Weeks before he died, he even made a sudden trip to England for a meeting.”

She brought her hand down hard on the desk. “That’s it, isn’t it? Something happened on that trip. I know he was planning to see your mum and dad, Martine, but I wish I could remember what business he had there.”

“When exactly did he go?” asked Martine. “Maybe you could check the date on the will produced by Mr. James and see if the two things coincided.”

“I know it was during our winter,” said her grandmother, “but I’d have to look in his old passport to see the exact date. I think I still have it.”

She opened the bottom drawer on the right side of her desk and went through a folder. The passport was not where she’d thought it would be, so she closed the drawer again. Only it wouldn’t shut properly. She wrestled with it in annoyance before wrenching it open again and feeling down the back. “Something’s stuck.”

She lifted out a heap of crumpled and torn bits of paper and a stiff blue envelope, a little mangled around the edges. On the front, in bold blue ink, was the word “Gwyn.”

Martine was on the verge of asking if she’d like to read it in private when her grandmother seized the letter opener. She read the enclosed note and passed it to each of them in turn.

For several long minutes nobody said anything. Nobody knew
what
to say. It was as if Henry Thomas had spoken from the grave. At last Martine plucked up the courage to ask: “What is the key for?”

Her grandmother removed it from the envelope and examined the business card tied to it with a piece of string. “It would appear that it’s for a safety-deposit box in a bank vault in England.”

She slumped in her chair. “Oh, what can it all mean? What is it that I have to forgive?”

“Maybe you’re right,” Ben suggested. “Maybe something did happen on Mr. Thomas’s trip to England.”

“Perhaps. But his secret, if he had one, has gone with him to the grave.”

“Not necessarily,” put in Martine. “If you went to England, the answer might be in the safety-deposit box. You could do some investigating and find out what my grandfather was doing there and who he was meeting with.”

Her grandmother was aghast. “I can’t travel halfway across the world and leave you alone in the house, especially when Sawubona is crawling with strangers. And I’m certainly not leaving Tendai alone to face the music on the reserve. Who knows what nefarious plans Mr. James has up his sleeve.”

“Martine won’t be alone,” Ben told her. “I’ll be here to protect her.”

In spite of her distress, Gwyn Thomas managed a smile. “And who’s going to protect you, Ben Khumalo?”

“Why don’t we call Grace and ask her if she’ll come and stay for a week or two,” suggested Martine. “Then Ben and I won’t be alone and Tendai will have some grown-up support. One look from Grace and Reuben James will probably run for his life.”

“Grace is away in Kwazulu-Natal visiting relatives,” her grandmother reminded her.

“Yes, but she is back in a couple of days,” Tendai pointed out. “I can have Tobias, our new guard, watch the house at night until then.”

“I can’t believe we’re even considering this,” said Gwyn Thomas. “What if it’s a wild-goose chase? What if I fly thousands of miles and spend a small fortune—at a time when we can least afford it—only to discover there’s nothing to discover? That the note was just something Henry wrote when he was feeling guilty about borrowing money from Mr. James.”

“Then at least you’ll know,” Martine told her. “You’ll know that there was nothing to find and you’ll know that you did everything possible to save Sawubona.”

But even as she spoke, a feeling of doom crept into her bones, joining the anger and dread already lurking there. “Maybe it’s not such a great idea,” she backtracked. “It is too far way and we’ll miss you.”

“No, I think you were right the first time, Martine,” Gwyn Thomas said. “I should travel to England, otherwise I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if it would have made a difference if I’d only gone. I should go if it means saving Sawubona.”

T
he morning after Gwyn Thomas had flown away, Sampson, an elderly game guard who patrolled the reserve on foot, radioed at six a.m. to say that he had found a buffalo needing urgent treatment for a suspected viral disease. Without that, it would die.

Martine heard the crackling of Tendai’s responses and went down to the kitchen to find out what was going on. Ben had already showered and was sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating anchovy toast. In contrast to Martine, who was not a morning person and was bleary-eyed and in her pajamas, her hair sticking up on end, he looked cool, alert, and ready to face anything the day could throw at him.

“There’s a sick buffalo near the northern boundary,” he told Martine. “Will you come with us? We could do with your help.”

Adrenaline began to course through Martine’s veins. Nothing woke her up faster than an animal needing help. She took a few swallows of Ben’s coffee and stole his last bit of toast, ignoring his protests. “Give me a minute,” she said. She raced upstairs for her survival kit, which she never went anywhere without, threw on a pair of jeans and a blue sweatshirt, and sped outside.

As it turned out, her haste was unnecessary. Tendai and Ben were not hanging around waiting for her, they were peering under the hood of the jeep and arguing about spark plugs and fuel injectors.

“This old lady had been running since I came to work for your grandfather twenty years ago and has been patched up many times, but in between she has always been so reliable,” Tendai told her. “She was working well last night. I can’t think why she is refusing to cooperate this morning.”

They were testing the battery when Reuben James came roaring into the yard in an open-topped Land Rover so new it sparkled.

“Perfect timing,” muttered Ben.

Reuben James stepped down from his vehicle. He was crisply dressed in a white shirt and tailored khaki trousers, his bald head shining. He looked every inch the successful safari park owner. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked, strolling over to them.

He offered a hand to Tendai. “I’m Reuben James. And you must be Sawubona’s famous game warden? I heard about you during my business dealings with Henry Thomas a few years ago, but I think you were away on a course at the time. You were a tracker then, if I’m not mistaken.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned very deliberately and smiled down at Martine. “We meet again.”

Martine wished she had a rotten egg at hand with which to wipe the grin from his arrogant, self-satisfied face. “Unfortunately,” she said.

Reuben James laughed.
“Unfortunately?
Come now, Martine, I’m sure we’re going to be the best of friends.”

The Zulu’s jaw tightened, but he’d been taken aback by Martine’s rudeness and made an extra effort to be polite. “Yes, sir, I am Sawubona’s game warden. Unhappily, my jeep won’t start. I will need to call the garage when they open at eight a.m. It wouldn’t be a problem except that we are rushing to save a sick buffalo.”

“A sick buffalo?” James waved an arm in the direction of his gold Land Rover. “Please,” he said. “Take my vehicle.”

They all stared at him in astonishment. Martine wondered what the catch was.

“Uh, thank you for your kind offer, Mr. James,” Tendai managed, “but there is no need for that. I have friends I can telephone in an emergency.”

But Reuben James wouldn’t hear of it. “I insist. It would be my pleasure. My driver will be happy to escort you. Lurk, take these good people into the game reserve to find this ill creature and spend as much time there as they need. I have some paperwork to attend to that will keep me busy until you return.”

He nodded toward the jeep. “In the meantime, with your permission, I’ll have one of my mechanics take a look at your engine.”

Before they could raise a single objection, he had ushered them into the new-leather-smelling interior of the Land Rover, personally shutting the doors behind each of them as if he, and not the man sitting at the wheel, were the chauffeur.

As they rolled out of the yard, Martine, who was in the backseat with Ben, risked a glance behind them. Reuben James was standing in the driveway waving, just like Gwyn Thomas usually did.

It’s as if he’s already won, fumed Martine. It’s as if he’s already moved into our home. It’s as if, two days after dropping this bombshell on us, he’s already Sawubona’s owner.

Then a little voice added:
And Jemmy’s.

The minute they were out of sight of the house, the chauffeur’s ingratiating smile slipped from his face, like the moon sliding behind a cloud. He drove in sullen silence. When Tendai asked him a question about the Land Rover, he pretended he didn’t understand.

They swept across Sawubona’s grassy green-gold plains, and on past the lake and the high escarpment. As they drew nearer to the mountain that hid the Secret Valley, Martine felt a pang. It was months since she’d been to the white giraffe’s special sanctuary. Inside the valley was a cave known only to Martine and Grace and, of course, the San Bushmen ancestors who’d recorded their lives on its walls in mystical paintings.

For reasons Martine did not even vaguely understand, they seemed to have predicted parts of her destiny there too. She could never decide whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that she had yet to figure out how to interpret the fortune-telling San paintings in the cave they called the Memory Room until it was too late. Until she’d already fallen overboard into shark-filled water, or been trapped in a cave with a wounded leopard.

“Only time and experience will give you the eyes to see them,” Grace was fond of saying.

Once, when Martine had complained that it wasn’t fair—that what was the point of having your destiny written on a cave wall if you couldn’t use it to avoid misfortune befalling you, Grace had told her that that was precisely the point. If a person could see their future, they’d only choose the great times. “Then you would never learn and never experience the important things in this world because oftentimes they’s tha hard things.”