Three Weeks in December (9781609459024) (29 page)

Sarah was here also. Her head thrown back, she laughed with joy at the sky, smeared with blood, a chunk of flesh on her cheek, while he, light-headed, backed up to lean against a tree.

Alan appeared beside him. He was dressed immaculately in freshly ironed linen. It seemed strange, as a physician, he never had the slightest stain of blood or pus on him. Did he change each time he left the hospital or was he careful to keep a distance between himself and his patients?

“Congratulations,” Alan said. “Brave shooting. Proud of you. You must tell me the blow-by-blow at teatime tomorrow.”

With Alan, Jeremy no longer felt any shame. This time it was the physician who turned away, facing the crowd rather than Jeremy's naked chest and improvised loincloth. Alan was careful not to ask what activity Jeremy had been in the midst of when the lion attacked.

“And,” the physician added as an afterthought, “I just examined your hunting chappie. Some nasty cuts along his belly, but nothing pierced the abdominal wall. It appears he will be fine.”

Hearing this, even leaning against the tree, Jeremy had to clamp one hand onto a branch to stop himself from sliding slack-kneed to the ground. “Thank God,” he whispered.

He was still holding the piece of Otombe's cloak inside his mouth. With it tucked in the pocket of his cheek, the fluidity of his face was somewhat restricted. He did not believe this would be a problem, for his mother had always complained that his face had a tendency toward a greater expressiveness than was proper. He was worried however that the piece of leather might create a bit of an impairment to his pronunciation, so he took care to hit each consonant sharply. Working to keep this secret in his mouth, it was possible his face and voice appeared a bit more restrained and forceful than before, perhaps a trifle more like his Grandpapi.

Alan, continuing to direct his gaze away, nodded in agreement. Now that the lion was dead, the power had shifted. Jeremy would be a hero with the railroad authorities and the Africans. For the coolies, faith in him would be restored, the problems he had encountered with indolence would diminish. The railroad tracks would push quickly onward, leaving this area far behind.

He should feel elated.

Over the tangled thicket of the nyika trees, a call quavered through the air. Different from a roar, it took him a moment to recognize. The other lion was calling for his companion, a sad moan rising into the growing night of a day already past.

The animal was not roaring, but crying. His power gone. His companion dead. Soon Jeremy, or someone else with a gun, would shoot him too.

Jeremy stood there another moment, simply breathing, leaning against the tree, watching the scene he had set in motion. A man swung the lion's cutoff tail through the air like a whip, two others played catch with a bloody paw. Their yells sounded shrill with the last few weeks of pent-up terror. This was the first time he had witnessed any of them act so savagely. He wanted to stop them but could not seem to muster the energy. He told himself it did no real harm. This violence must have always been inside of them. His mother had repeatedly foretold this scene: wild dark-skinned people, bloodthirsty savages.

He had killed the lion on the first day of this new century, this century that stretched ahead of them, empty and waiting.

A
bout midmorning, they found the trail of Titus's group and began to follow it. For once, the family's prints didn't wander roundabout through the jungle from edible bush to edible tree. Instead the trail climbed straight up the mountainside, the gorillas moving single-file and without stopping to eat.

“The gunfire,” Yoko said. “They heard it and they're scared. They're heading up, away from town.”

After an hour of hard climbing, following the trail, the women still hadn't spotted the gorillas. This was much further than the group normally wandered in a day. Max had at least two cuts on the bottom of her feet now and a puncture in her left ankle that felt deep. Yoko was limping, seemed unwilling to put any weight on her right heel.

At this altitude, the foliage had begun to change. Fewer
Vernonia
and
Hagenia
trees and for the first time Max saw giant heather, a scrubby tree rising thirty feet into the air, the twisted branches shaggy with lichen. The higher they climbed, the shorter the trees grew, the jungle beginning to transition to alpine grasslands.

Around two pm, they caught their first glimpse of the family through the heather from about two hundred feet. The gorillas had stopped fleeing, were clustered in a patch of wild celery and eating hungrily. Max came to a halt, drinking in the sight of their dark muscular weight. Everything, she thought, everything will work out fine.

Yoko pulled her behind a giant heather tree. She whispered, “We shouldn't get any closer today. They're scared and we don't want to spook them. We'll approach them gradually tomorrow.”

The emotions of the morning as well as the long climb had exhausted both women. They took turns lying splayed in the sun and snoring, while the other stood guard. At this altitude sometimes a wind from the west momentarily erased the sounds from town.

While Yoko took her turn sleeping, Max watched the gorillas with the binoculars. She felt calmer when she looked at them than when she searched the slope below for any signs of Kutu. She tried to pretend this was just a normal afternoon with them. She took comfort in how they knuckled from spot to spot just like they always did, chomping through the celery, their roving messy tea party.

Turning back to the trees below, she caught the flash of something red, but training the binoculars on it, saw it was just a bird flying by.

Her heart was beating fast and her head hurt. How did neorotypicals deal with fear like this?

She looked back to the gorillas. Working on breathing normally, she tried to think only about these apes, to observe them. This was when she noticed how closely they were clustered, all within thirty feet. Generally they left a much greater space between each other. A few of them sat just inches apart. Although most were eating, they didn't seem as concentrated on the food as they normally were. Twice she saw a gorilla let a few stalks of celery fall to the ground and not bother to pick the food up even though there wasn't that much to eat at this altitude.

Several times, Titus snorted and stared down the mountain. At first she was worried he was catching their smell, but the wind was moving the wrong way for that, and he wasn't looking toward them, but further down the mountain.

At one point he stood up to his full height, drummed his chest and pig-grunted. Uncle, the second silverback, roared fiercely from a spot safely behind Titus. The others stared toward town, sniffing the air, the gunfire and explosions reverberating distantly.

From behind her, Yoko whispered, “The last war in this area was just a few years ago. All the gorillas, except the babies, remember what gunfire means.”

Searching, Max found Rafiki after a moment, slightly uphill of the group, holding Asante in her arms. Normally they didn't touch like this. Rafiki's chin was cupped over her child's head, rocking their bodies gently back and forth, both of their eyes closed tight. Rocking and rocking.

 

For dinner, Yoko and Max ate two mangoes each as an appetizer. Having hiked through a lot of the day, their hunger was immense. Max managed to down the orange-colored flesh by closing her eyes and thinking about cream of wheat. From being banged around in a bag all day, the mango flesh was nearly liquefied. They would have to eat the mangoes in the next few days before they went bad.

Once they'd finished sucking the mango skins clean, Yoko pulled out two sweet potatoes and then froze. “Shit.”

Max threw herself to the ground, hands on top of her skull, hoping to protect it against any bullets that might fly by.

She stared downhill, from bush to tree to bush, searching for any movement, but could spot nothing. She flash-glanced to Yoko.

Yoko was sitting upright, staring at the potatoes, not the bushes. “We can't cook these. We don't have matches, and even if we could get a fire going, the smoke would betray our position.”

Max rolled over onto her back, holding a hand against her chest. “Fuck, don't scare me like that.”

“Nice duck-and-cover you did, Tombay.”

“Fuck.”

Yoko handed a potato to Max. “Are these going to poison us if we eat them raw?”

Max considered hers. “No, it'll be better for us. More vitamin A and C.” She looked at it with regret, then closing her eyes and thinking hard of a peeled Idaho potato, pure and white, took her first bite.

They crunched through the food with determination. They hadn't spoken a lot today, too stunned by all that had happened, too scared of whom else might be in the woods listening. They communicated as much as they could with gestures. At any unusual noise, they froze, heads cocked and waiting, before resuming chewing. When they were finished, they licked their fingers clean.

Yoko whispered, “I think we got maybe thirty potatoes in my bag, as well as the bag of mashed mangoes.”

Max added, “I've got twenty cans of what I hope is soup in my knapsack.”

Yoko leaned forward, excited. “And a can opener?”

Max froze, self-disgust on her face.

A distant explosion boomed like thunder.

“Alright. That's OK. We can manage,” Yoko said. “We can smash them open with rocks or something. We'll lose some food to the smashing, but we'll still be able to eat most of it.”

“This food won't last us long.”

“Nope. We're going to have to forage as much as possible.”

“Well,” said Max, “we can eat anything the gorillas eat. However we can't break down cellulose like they can, so a lot of what gives them calories won't do us any good. The best things are probably the berries. I'll think about it and see if I can come up with a tuber or two.” She held her canteen above her mouth for a moment to drain the last of its water. “We're going to get skinny.”

Yoko said, “What I worry about is water.”

“Why? There are streams everywhere.”

“You haven't spent the last few months combing through the poop around here, counting parasites. From the streams, we can get guinea worm, amebiasis, and giardia. We can't boil the water clean because we can't build a fire. Spending a few months up here won't be a lot of fun if worms start popping out our—”

“No,” Max said, shoving her thumbs into her ears. Her dislocated arm could just make this motion when she angled her head that way. “Can't hear that.”

Yoko started to say something more, her voice amused.

Her eyes shut tight, Max spoke over her. “No, I'm serious. That info I can't have. It won't leave my mind.” The image of something inside her, eating her.

Yoko heard her tone of voice and stopped.

Max cautiously pulled her thumbs out. “What you're saying is we need a source of clean water?”

“Would be nice, Tombay. You think we can dig a well?”

Max started scanning the plants around them. “No.” She stood up and walked in a slow circle, discarding options almost as fast as she thought of them. “Better than that. Give me a minute.” This way, thinking hard, she felt more in control and less scared. Finally she spotted a small pygeum and walked over to it. “Can you break this branch off, close to the trunk? I can't do it with my arm in a sling.”

Yoko ripped the branch off with a grunt and Max held her empty canteen under the gash in the tree. After waiting a moment, a small ker-plink echoed from inside the canteen. Then another.

“Tie the canteen in this position. You can use the strap and run it over the branch above,” Max pointed. “The canteen'll be full by morning. The sap is pure enough for our purposes and we'll get a few calories from drinking it. There are other trees we can do this with. I'll find them.” She was glad they weren't down in Karago, wandering through town pleading for help in a language no one could understand. Up here among the plants, they had at least a fighting chance.

“Stick with me, kid,” said Yoko. “We make a good pair.”

Above them, the gorillas started to build their nests for the night. While Max set up the other canteen so it would also get filled while they slept, Yoko began to construct a nest, mounding the branches and leaves high enough to keep the blankets off the damp ground, as well as to create a bit of a cushion to lay on. Then she took all their blankets and spread them on the pile to make a single bed.

“What do you think you're doing?” Max asked.

“At this altitude, it's going to get close to freezing at night. We only have three blankets. No tent. We're going to have to bunk together.”

Max stared at the blankets. The sun was on the far side of the mountains. She was already shivering, even in all her clothing. She tried to imagine sleeping next to a shuffling kicking human. A long moment passed. “You lie down facing away from me. You can't move during the night.”

“Jeez, you're like my ex-husband.”

“I mean it. I can't take it. Not in the middle of all this.” She closed her eyes, figuring out how to say it. “My nerves, right now, they're tight. Humming. They can't take much.”

“Alright, alright.”

They lay under the blankets, facing away. Yoko was stiff and still, trying to help out. So uncalm.

After a long moment, Yoko said, “It's time for the BBC broadcast. Permission to move so I can wind the radio up?”

“No, you stay still. I'll do it.”

At the first buzz of static, even two hundred feet away, they heard Titus's snort of fear. Max fumbled the radio off fast. Then she plugged in the ear set before turning it cautiously back on, her and Yoko each getting one earbud.

Experimentally, Max tried scanning the airwaves, but aside from the BBC, she found no other broadcasts they could understand. On most of the stations, she wasn't even sure of what the language was. So, she returned to the BBC, hoping for an update on the Kutu.

Unfortunately that day the President had visited London, and reports on the protests and speeches took up most of the broadcast. No mention at all was made of any country in Africa.

At the end of the broadcast, Max snapped the radio off.

Yoko asked permission to readjust the blankets for the night. Max agreed; the only part of her that was warm was where their backs pressed together. Yoko sat up and tucked in the blankets as tightly as a sleeping bag around them, then lay back down. The sky darkened and the jungle around them quieted, the calls of nightjars, hyrax and a few monkeys. In comparison, the distant sounds of battle seemed to get louder, reverberating, tidy as fireworks. Max was glad she could hear no human sounds behind the noise.

“Yoko, stay still.”

“I am.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

Max was quiet for a moment. “This is hard for me.”

“I know, Tombay. I'm sorry.” Yoko said, “I
am
trying.”

She rubbed the
féticheuse's
pouch between her fingers in order to ignore Yoko's small shifts and her shivering, in order to calm herself.

From the angle of Yoko's back, Max thought her head was probably turned so she could look down the slope, keeping an eye out for danger even in the darkness. They were silent for a while, waiting for sleep. It wasn't even eight o'clock.

Yoko said, “My boyfriend right now, Patrick, have I talked about him? Since my ex, he's the first guy I really . . . ” She paused. “I've been gone for months. I email and phone when I can, and it sounds like he hasn't changed, you know, or met someone else, but it's been a long time.” Her voice vibrating through her back irritated Max, but at least while talking, Yoko wasn't as rigid with constricted energy. Max tried to concentrate on the words.

“I've dreamed,” Yoko said, “about the moment when I get off the plane at home. Not daydreamed, but dream-dreamed, at night. I see Patrick in the distance, just the back of his head and shoulders. He's standing there in a crowd of all these strangers. I walk closer and he starts to turn around. I know in a moment I'll be able to see his face, tell from his expression just how he feels.”

She added, “Then I wake up. Several times I've had that dream.”

The two of them fell quiet. Yoko seemed calmer now and that made Max calmer. Neither of them spoke again that night, just tried to sleep as much as they could. The air got colder quickly. The two of them pressed so tightly together, it was difficult to tell which one of them was shivering.

At one point, wafting up the mountain came the smell of what might have been burning hair. Then the wind changed and it was gone.

The later the night got—as her mind drifted in a state of half sleep—the more difficult it became not to imagine what might be happening down in town. At the slightest sound below her, she visualized what might be climbing toward them through the darkness. Occasionally she pictured tomorrow's dawn, the sun rising to reveal her head, lying by itself on the jungle floor, all the flesh knifed off of it. She imagined herself part of a Kutu's jittery system, never at rest.