The Ghost of Kilimanjaro

PART ONE

“If you will look now on the left side, you will see the mountain,  Kilimanjaro.” Lemu slowed the car, so that the American tourists could find the mountain.

“I don’t see it,” Charlotte Sales practically cried out. “Where is it?” She turned to Lemu sitting to her left in front of her. The other three Americans said nothing. The young man, Cam Sales, earbuds in, eyes closed, and forehead against the window sat on the right side behind his mother, Charlotte.  The woman, Marjorie Sales, sitting on the left side of Cam looked straight ahead, as if she hadn’t heard. Her arms folded around her tightly. John Sales, her husband, sitting in the seat in front of her and to the right of Charlotte, looked out of the window, his hand shading his eyes though the sun had set already, and the sky glowed with the waning twilight.

“There,” John said to Charlotte, who was leaning across the aisle to see out of the window. He traced the silhouette of the mountain on the glass with his index finger. His arm ached mildly when he bent it. A distal tendon sprain, maybe even a partial tear, he thought. He would have it looked at when they got home.

“I can’t see it,” Carlotte said. “Why can’t I see it?”

“T’is faint,” Lemu said. “And perhaps there is haze.  T’is very difficult to see.”

John Sales took a deep breath. He guided his ex-wife’s hand to the window, folded all but her index finger and placed it against the glass. “It is barely visible, but look where I’ve placed your finger.” 

Charlotte’s face pushed past John, and he leaned back into the seat. She huffed a sigh. “I just don’t see it.” She slipped back to her side of the car and straightened herself. “I just had an eye examination last month and my optometrist said that with my contacts in I have 20/30 vision. That isn’t perfect vision. I used to have perfect vision. But it’s still very good vision. It must be the haze.”

“Yes,” John said, fatigue in his voice. “It is hazy. Very hazy.” The mountain was an ephemeral blue loaf set against the corn flower blue of the sky. It sat heavily on the horizon, nearly the size of his palm at arm’s length. He could see that it had been a volcanic cone that had been snapped off about two-thirds of the way up, giving the snow-capped top a flattened shape. Puffs of clouds lay against it, obscuring parts of its face. For a moment it was plain and as apparent as the block and cement hovels and the lean, hard-looking people they passed along the route to the international airport. John wondered how it must be to live with a view of the mountain. So magnificent. And yet the frail, ragged people, he imagined, lived hard lives. Then, suddenly, the mountain turned wispy, and he could no longer see it, though he strained to find some sign of it.

“Before I was a guide,” Lemu said, “I was a porter for a guide operation for climbing up the mountain.” Whether Lemu sensed the lingering tension among family members, or just their fatigue, or both, John couldn’t tell. But it seemed he wanted to entertain them. A story might keep Charlotte quiet for a few minutes if nothing else. They had been traveling for ten days, mostly safari in the Serengeti, but the last three in the Ngorongoro highlands with visits to the crater. It was his son’s high school graduation trip, a trip Charlotte had dangled to entice him to take a course called “The African Diaspora.”  “You will learn something about your people,” she had said. “And then we will go to see the Motherland firsthand.”

At first, Cam had resisted. He wanted to go to Europe. Take a friend. Maybe go to Spain. Maybe to Morocco. But not to the Sub-Saharan. “I don’t want to go any place where I have to take pills or get malaria, or dysentery.”

“You won’t,” his mother declared. We’ll get Daddy to put us up in the nicest places.” The boy took the class and passed with an average grade. He said he had learned some mumble-jumble about black pharaohs and ancient kingdoms, then the Europeans came, and Africans sold other Africans into slavery. So why would he want to visit there? He wanted to go to Mykonos, where, at eighteen, he could drink legally.

“We were to walk from the Machambe gate but that day the rain came hard, and our party did not climb. The clients went back to their rooms at the lodge. The guides had bunks there, too. But the porters, the five of us, had to find  some other shelter and we were told of an abandoned farmhouse near Barangata. It was not far. We walked to it in the rain. The house was nice, but I don’t know. There was something off about it. The first night the rain was a deluge. The roof rang like a bell and at first, I thought it would make me crazy. We laughed at it, and told stories, and crawled into our swag beds against the cold and slept.  I slept good, but I don’t know, something woke me up. Now the rain had passed, and I could hear the sounds of the forest. The frogs and the insects. But there was another sound. Like a human sound. Like a laugh. Maybe a hyena. Maybe a hornbill, I thought. Today, I would not have gotten up. But then I was seventeen or eighteen and I was curious. I did not have a torchlight, but got up in the dark and found my boots and put them on and went out. The air was cold and fresh from the rain and the bush was wet. I walked a little way from the house to where I saw a little farm. It had been abandoned like the house. The maize had been trampled down by animals and I realized then that the people had left all of a sudden, and I didn’t know why that would be. Even though my sleeves were long, I could feel the hair on my arms stand up. I heard the sound again, and turned around. A woman stood right there.” He paused, making the turn from the highway onto the airport road.

“And?” Charlotte said, leaning across the seat.

“She held out to me bloody hands. ‘Kwa nini hili litokee?’ She said to me. I will never forget. ‘Kwa nini hili litokee?’ she said.”

Lemu stopped the car at the guard house, rolled down his window and greeted the guard, a stoutly built man who had come to the window. The conversation proceeded as if between friends, punctuated with laughter. Another guard wanded the underside of the car for explosives.

“An inconvenient time for a stop,” Charlotte said, engaging first John and then Majorie.

“I’m sure he’ll finish the story once we are through,” Majorie said, coolness in her voice and holding Charlotte’s gaze until Charlotte turned away.

“It’s a ghost, I bet. He saw a ghost.” Charlotte turned to her son who still had his eyes closed, though he did not seem asleep. “I bet I’m right.” She pursed her lips and rubbed her right arm with her left hand.

Lemu said goodbye to the guard and was rolling up the window.

“It was a ghost!” Charlotte said. “You saw a ghost.”

“Yes. T’was a spirit.”

“I thought so. My grandmother told me a similar story. Only it happened in Virigina, not in…in…in wherever you were. And it was a man, not a woman.”

“Excuse me,” Majorie interrupted. “Lemu, what was it that the woman said to you? She said something in Swahili.”

“Oh, yes. That is the most curious part. She said, something like, “Why must it happen?” For a moment no one spoke. Lemu shook his head quizzically, parked the car and turned off the engine. Porters ran up to the back of the car. 

“Why must what happen?” Charlotte blurted.

“I learned that she had gone out with her young son to tend the farm, and she met with a buffalo. It gored her.  It broke the boy’s legs so badly they must be cut off. The woman, she died. The husband was in such distress he abandoned the place. He moved the family to Arusha.”

The airport was nearly empty of passengers and so there was no waiting to check the luggage and to pass through security and passport control. By the time John and Majorie arrived in the Aspire Lounge, Cam was already there, sitting by himself at the far end near a window that overlooked the tarmac. John gave him a wave, but his son didn’t look up.

“Do you think he is drinking?” Marjorie asked.

“Do you think?” John sighed, looked at the time on his watch. “It’s okay. It’s a long flight coming up. He’ll sleep.”

“But his drinking.”

“It worries me, too. But now is not the time.”

They had just taken seats in the front of the room at a distance from Cam, when Charlotte came in.

“At least the toilets are clean,” Charlotte said and took the seat next to Majorie. The seats were lounge chairs and she put up her feet and toed off her sneakers. “It’s really been a marvelous trip, but I will be glad to be getting home.”

“Yes,” Majorie agreed after a silence.

Charlotte looked at Majorie, and held her stare. “I guess, you are still upset with me. I would’ve thought you would have let it go by now. I did apologize.”

“I don’t want to talk about it now. It’s just not a thing I want to talk about.” Marjorie turned to look at John, then back at Charlotte and back to John.  “I’m going to see if they have any wine.” She got up briskly and walked away.

“You know,” John said tightly, “that she loves Cam”—

“But she is not his mother.”

“That’s not fair. She’s a good stepmother.”

“Stepmother. Not mother. The day she spends fourteen hours in labor is the day she’s a mother.”

“Charlotte!” John quieted his voice, realizing it had carried across the lobby and the only other people there, a couple, had looked up.

“And you weren’t there either,” Charlotte said between her teeth. She was never my friend. I could never put my finger on it, but she was never my friend. Would a friend try to steal your children? She can have John. I don’t care about that. But she can never have Cam. I carried him—right here—inside of me for forty weeks and then I pushed him out….oh my God! Am I pushing him out now? Is this a second birth? Don’t be silly, Charlotte. Even if it were a second birth, I am still his mother. She looked to the end of the room and saw Cam for the first time. He was slouched in one of the recliner chairs, lying still. Suddenly, in a loud whisper, she said, “My god! I could have lost him.” Her heart raced and she looked over to John, but he had gotten up and was walking to the bar.

The bar was unattended, but the bottles, glasses and ice had been set out for self-service. Majorie was reading the label on a wine bottle. It was a South African wine. “I don’t think I will like it.” She said without looking up.

“Weren’t the wines at the Manor South African. You liked those.” The Manor was the luxury lodge where they had spent the last three days.

“They were okay.” She took a deep breath and slowly sighed it out. “Could you make me something stronger. I need something strong. Something just to knock me out. I just want to get on that plane and wake up somewhere else.”

John saw a bottle of Collins mix and made her a Tom Collins. There was no cherry to garnish it. He poured a double of Jack Daniels on ice for himself. “Do you want to sit over here for a while?”

“Don’t you think she will have something to say about us abandoning her? That, or she’ll drag her fat ass over.”

“Let’s just sit over here for a while.” John led her to a small table near the bar. They sat for a few minutes without speaking. Then John said, “I want to thank you. I know this hasn’t been easy on you.”

She managed to smile. “It’s been terrible.”

“You understand, we had to. It was a family trip. For Cam.”

“Except Cam didn’t want to come. He wanted to go to Europe. Anyway, I didn’t mind the trip. It was enjoyable to see the animals. But what Cam did, I can’t get over it. Do you think he meant to?”

John thought it wouldn’t hurt to have Cam talk to someone when he got back to Atlanta. They were all doctors, and among them they knew the medical community well. They could find someone good. And discrete. He said that to Majorie, but he wasn’t sure she had heard him. She had drunk half of the Tom Collins and seemed to have been staring blankly.

“I’d better get something on my stomach,” she said and went to the food bar.

Her slim figure, still shapely, pleased John as he watched her walk away. Man, he thought, I am so lucky to have such a beautiful wife. And companionable. He and Charlotte had been companionable, too, but something spoiled it. He was still not sure what. The seven-year itch. He had nothing to scratch. It was just that he realized that he didn’t want to be in the same house with her. Cam was just six when the divorce came. The next year, he started to date Marjorie, and they married soon after.

Majorie returned with a bag of chips.

“They didn’t have food?”

“Nothing hot that I wanted. I almost got the hummus, but thought better of it. I don’t need to be sick on the plane.” She sighed and looked at him forlornly. “I feel sick already. Sick about what Cam did and sick about fighting with Charlotte. I just want to go home.” He reached out and took her hand. “And then the driver had to tell that story. Someone being killed by an animal was the last thing I wanted to hear about.”

Lemu had told them three stories about animals killing people. The first when they were leaving the Seronera Airstrip. Everyone was excited and a little punch drunk from the long flight from Europe and then the hop in the seesawing bush plane from Arusha to Seronera.  From the air, the green dome-like hills and forests gave way to the tawny expanse of grassland. From the safari car, a Toyota, the plains seemed less flat, with rolling hills and kopjes. Charlotte complained about the dust, and they immediately let up their windows. Then she complained that she was hot, so Lemu raised the expandable roof for them. They were not yet officially on a safari, just on the road between the airstrip and the Serena Lodge, but they began to see wildebeests and zebras. Lemu stopped the car at Charlotte’s urgent command. She stood up and began to take pictures, leaning out under the roof.

“I don’t think these are going to be good pictures,” she said. “Can we get closer?”

Lemu said that they were not allowed to leave the road.

“I’ll just get out, then.”

“No!” Lemu shouted, then he apologized. He turned to face the passengers. “You must never get out of the car. If you do, you could die.”

“Ahhh, shit,” Cam said, just loud enough.

“These are wild animals,” Lemu said. “Wild. Inside the car, they will not harm you. They are used to the car. But outside. They can kill you.” He put the car in gear and started off with a slight jerk, forcing Charlotte to take her seat again. “Once.” Lemu raised an index finger dramatically. “I was driving a family. I believe they were from Japan. We stopped to look at egrets or maybe spoonbills at the banks along the Mara. The man—I think the father—hopped out of the car to get a picture. I yelled for him to return. But he kept going. I didn’t know what to do, so I got out to pull him back. He was crouched beside the bank with a big camera.  As I was coming up to him. Whoosh! T’was a crocodile. Whoosh! It happened so fast. There was nothing I could do. I could see the crocodile twisting in the death roll. The man still held on to his camera.”

There was silence for a long while except for the engine, the tires, and the clank of the car as it hit bumps in the road. John looked into the rearview mirror, trying to find Lemu’s face, trying to assess the veracity of the story. He couldn’t see the guide’s face, but noticed how hard he gripped the steering wheel. Finally, Cam leaned up to John from behind and said quietly. “I told you I didn’t want to come. I told you.”

They were on the patio by the pool, having drinks, and looking down the hill onto the ravines and slopes of the neighboring hills. The grassy hills were yellowing, as it was already a month into the dry season. The fountain shapes of acacia, in groves, cast shadows up the slopes where the sunlight still reached.

Majorie crooked her arm in his and laid her head against his shoulder as John stood at the stone barrier wall.  She said nothing, but he could tell she was happy. It was her first time in any part of Africa, and she was enjoying the scenery. She always enjoyed beautiful scenes.

“Jambo.” A young woman, a circular braid pattern in her hair, came to ask if they wanted seconds on drinks. Cam sat with his mother just behind where John and Majorie stood. When John turned, he saw Cam looking at him. The look was partly pleading and partly defiant. He wanted to order another drink and would do it, but was hoping his father would make it easier for him. He had learned that he could drink legally in Tanzania at age eighteen. John nodded and Cam ordered a Moscow Mule. He had already finished his rum and Coke.  John chuckled and walked over to the table. He gave the server his and Majorie’s drink order. Charlotte had not finished her first drink. “Asante,” John offered, and the server responded karibu. “One day, I’ll teach you to drink something that won’t rot your teeth.”

The young man smiled. John loved the smile. He couldn’t quite place who it reminded him of, Charlotte or himself, maybe neither. It was a wide smile, lips slightly parted and sharp lines at the corner of his mouth. Cam had bright, straight teeth, the result of several thousands of dollars of orthodontics—but he would have been very handsome without straight teeth. He had an oval face, gray eyes, a slim athletic build, and tan skin that gave him a warm glow. He had experimented with dreadlocks, but now wore his hair cut close, nearly shaven.

“Will you show me how to make a martini? I want to learn how to drink martinis—”

“It’s just gin and vermouth,” Charlotte said. “This is what they call a sundowner, isn’t it? When you sit around and have drinks and look at the sunset.”

“Your mother drank them all the time,” Majorie said. She took the seat next to Charlotte. “When we were undergraduates. It’s a wonder you got into medical school.”

“I wasn’t worried. I had the grades. I got my top choice.” She took a sip of her drink and looked away. “We all can’t say that.”

“Well,” John said. “Here we all are, now. In Africa no less. It’s so different from the first time your mother and I were here. That was long before you were born, Cam. I know this wasn’t your first choice for a trip, but I think you’ll like it. You’ll see it’s so magical. Spiritual, I’ll say.”

“So far, it’s just frightening. That story about the crocodile. Do you think there are crocodiles in the swimming pool? And the receptionist said we had to have an escort after dark because buffalo come onto the grounds and can kill you.”

“They are the most dangerous of all the animals,” Charlotte said. “They gore you and trample you.”

“I thought that would be lions,” Majorie said. “Lions?” She looked at John for confirmation and he shrugged.

“No,” said Charlotte. “Definitely, cape buffalo and hippos. They are fast and big, and they trample you.” She turned to Cam. “And stay on the path at night. They have snakes, too.”

“Ohh shit.”

Charlotte laughed. “Gabon vipers. Cobras.”

“Mambas,” said John and smiled mischievously.

“Mosquitos,” Charlotte said. She brayed a laugh. “They kill more people than all of them put together.” The server brought the drinks. “I’ll have another.” Charlotte tapped the lip of her glass.

“Won’t we be going up for dinner soon?” Majorie asked.

“So. I would like another.” Charlotte turned from Majorie and said asante to the server. “I’m enjoying sitting here.” She reached across the table and touched Cam on the shoulder. “With my son, my handsome son. He looks so much like his father, all grown up. Off to college in a few weeks. And then med school.”

“I don’t want to be a doctor.”

“You don’t know what you want to be.”

“I know I don’t want to be a doctor.”

“There’s plenty of time to decide,” Majorie said. “Isn’t that right Cam?”

Cam slurped his drink.

“I knew when I was his age.”

“I’m not you, Mom. And I’m not you either, Margi-Mom. I’m not any of you. And I don’t know what I want to be. I’m going to college. Isn’t that enough for now?”

“No,” Charlotte said. She smiled and leaned across the table. “It’s not enough.  It’s the bare minimum. And you don’t have the luxury of not having a direction. We’ve worked our asses off to get here. You’ll need to do the same.”

“Who said I wanted to be  here?’ Cam said, mostly under breath.

“Now,” John said and raised his glass. “We are on vacation. In Africa, no less. Let’s celebrate Cam’s graduation and whatever he does, I know it will be a wonderful future.” All raised their glasses, except Cam who took another slurp without looking up.

The dinner was served buffet style with various stations for salads, cooked vegetables and meats. The adults laughed when Cam returned to his table with pasta.

“All of that variety, and you chose pasta,” his mother said and shook her head. Then she leaned over and tugged his ear. “Still my baby boy.”

“I’m not a boy. And besides I’m a vegetarian.”

“And you didn’t choose a single vegetable. They have cooked vegetables. Stay away from the raw ones and make sure the cooked ones are hot.

“I don’t want any vegetables.”

“Charlotte,” said Majorie. “I think he’s old enough to know what he wants to eat.”

“Apparently, he’s not.”

“Oh, just let it go. Let’s just enjoy…enjoy….” Marjorie looked up and around. “Enjoy being in Africa.”

“He won’t enjoy it if he’s sick—”

“He’s not going to get—”

“Shut up.” Charlotte said, turning to Majorie who sat to her right. “Nobody asked for your opinion. Nobody asked you to come anyway.”

“You shut up!” Cam said. He stood. His chair tipped back but did not fall. “You shut up, Mom!” He walked away. The adults watched as he zig-zagged around the dining tables and out of the dining pavilion.

Charlotte threw her napkin on her plate. She raised a finger towards John and started to speak but stopped. She stood.

“Charlotte. Just let him be. He’ll calm down,” John said.

“I won’t. I’m his mother and I will not have him talk to me that way.” Charlotte turned to Majorie and then took a step away from the table and back. Other diners were taking notice of them. She bent toward Majorie, took a sigh and said in a controlled way. “I, not you, am his mother.” 

Majorie looked away, staring, it seemed, into the darkness beyond the pavilion until Charlotte went away. Then she let out a soft whimper, a catlike sound, and though her face contorted she didn’t cry. “Let’s go.” She said.

John looked at the prime rib he had only taken a few bites of. But he rose, took her by the elbow and escorted her back to the chalet where she lay across the bed and sobbed.

Charlotte was the first to arrive at breakfast and was sitting at their assigned table when John came in.  The server offered him coffee and he took it black, had a sip, before he said good morning to Charlotte.

“I apologize for last night,” Charlotte said. “I lost my temper. I hope Majorie can forgive me.”

“I hope so too, but you will have to ask her yourself.”

“I will, of course.” Charlotte had served herself an English breakfast, complete with beans and tomatoes. “You—well, you weren’t’ very helpful either to let Cam speak to me that way.”

John took two gulps of his coffee, nearly draining the cup. He was hungry and still too sleepy to have an argument with Charlotte. Why did he agree to the trip, a family trip? They weren’t a family anymore. At least Charlotte was no longer family. He should have sent Cam to Europe with a friend as he wanted.

“Listen Charlotte.” He started to wag his index finger at her but thought better of it and put his hand in his lap. “Please understand this. You are my guest on this family trip—”

“I am Cam’s mother. His real mother. I have just as much right as anyone—”

“No, you don’t. Not here.” He lowered his voice. “You are his mother and you’ve been a good mother. But you are a guest in this family.”

“You are saying I am not a part of the family.”

“Not part of my family. You used to be. We had a good many good years. But that’s been over for a while now. Cam and Majorie are my family.” The server, a slim young man, smiling, interrupted to ask if he could pour more coffee. Both John and Charlotte took more. Charlotte added sugar and milk to hers. “I was up half the night consoling Majorie—and now, I need you to act decently toward her.”

“I am decent. And I resent that you act like I didn’t raise my own son.”

“We all raised him, Charlotte. That’s the only reason you are here on this trip.”

“If I’m not welcomed—”

“Please, Charlotte. Don’t play the victim. Will you just please, please, act right.”

Charlotte’s mouth twisted. She looked down at her breakfast and after a while sighed. “The sausages—what are they called—bangers?—they’re good.”

The first day of safari was exciting and they all seemed to forget about the fracas. Lemu showed them herds of impala and zebra, a pride of lionesses and cubs sprawling in the shade under an acacia, a lone cheetah sitting like a pharaoh on an anthill. They rode in a dusty, bumpy loop all around Robana without ever getting close enough to the settlement to see it. They were talking excitedly about the animals. Charlotte took pictures with her kodak and Cam with his I-phone. Majorie looked through the binoculars. Even when the car was close to the animals, she trained the binoculars on them and commented about their features. John took pictures with his Nikon  D7100, a modest camera. He didn’t consider himself much of a photographer.  A family of elephants crossed the road in front of them. Cam stood up in the car, pushing his lean shoulders beyond the extended roof to get photographs. He leaned out so far that Lemu reached from the driver’s seat and grabbed him by the belt. They all laughed, and Cam laughed, too. They saw large birds—secretary birds, Kori bustards, and ostriches. Lemu got a radio message, and he asked them to sit down and rushed over the rutty road to where ten or more cars had gathered. He took out his binoculars and looked in the direction of a large sausage tree.

“It is a leopard,” he said. “A leopard with a kill.”

They took turns looking at it through binoculars. It was hard to see at first and they sometimes mistook the pendulous fruit for the leopard’s tail, but when they found the cat, lounging on a large branch partially obscured by foliage, there was no mistaking it. In front of it, draped like a rug across a rail was an impala.

“Cool!” Cam exclaimed.

John caught Charlotte’s eye and nodded. She sucked in air through her nose satisfactorily, as if to say, “I told you so.”

They ended the day at the Ritima Hippo Pool on the Orangi River. “There must be hundreds,” Majorie said, looking out at the muddy pool where the animals huddled.”

“They stink,” Cam said. Then one of them not far away, pooped and spun its tail so that the feces shot out in all directions. Everyone laughed. On the way back to the lodge a storm rolled in. The sunlight shone in streaks through the blue clouds and suddenly there was a rainbow.

At breakfast, after two more days of safari, the excitement had waned. Cam complained that they were just seeing the same animals. “The very same ones, over and over.” He said with a smirk. ‘Joe and Sam and Dick and Harry—”

“Well, we haven’t seen everything,” his mother said. She took out her cell phone and scrolled to an application, a game scoring notebook. “We’ve seen just four of the big five. No rhinos yet. And—oh, there are lots of things. Jackals. Servals. Crocodiles. Wouldn’t you love to see a crocodile?”

“No. I’m tired. May I just sit out by the pool today?” Cam looked to John.

“And do what? Drink?” his mother asked.

“It’s legal. Besides I’m on vacation.”

“Your father paid a lot of money for you to have this experience, and I think you should be appreciative.”

“I am, but I’m tired.”

John cleared his throat. “If you want to sit by the pool. Have a day off. That’s fine.”

“Thanks Dad.

“In fact, we all might want to do that. Just for a change of pace.”

“I can sit by a pool in Atlanta.”

“It’s a vacation!” John shrugged and raised his hands. “What the hell? Do what you want to do. I’m sure Lemu wouldn’t mind a day off.”

“You paid—”

John raised an index finger toward Charlotte. “I paid.”

Charlotte let out a huff. Mumbled. “Well, I didn’t come all this way to sit by a goddamn pool.”

“I’ll go with you,” Majorie said. “I like looking at the animals.”

Charlotte looked up and at Majorie. “Oh. Well. Okay.”

“You really don’t have to,” John told Majorie when they were back in their chalet.

Majorie was gathering her safari gear, a sun hat, sunglasses, and binoculars. “I really don’t mind. I enjoy the animals.”

“The beast Charlotte?”

“She really isn’t that bad. You stay with Cam. Have a father and son day.”

She was tying on the hat and tucking loose braids under the brim. She looked so young in that moment, the sunlight streaming through the window casting the shadow of the open blinds across her body like stripes. He wanted to kiss her, and he put his arms around her from behind. “You are very brave.” She scoffed. They kissed, just a peck and he let her go.

The road was dusty and bumpy, and it seemed Lemu was in an unusual and short mood. The car hit the bumps hard, throwing the passengers back and forth. They rode this way for forty-five minutes and no one spoke. Majorie looked out of the right side of the car, at the passing savannah, the sparse acacia and other trees. The sky was pearly blue with wisps of high clouds. Several kopjes rose on the horizon. The morning was still cool, and she felt pleasantly relaxed and content to watch the passing scenery. Impala, gazelle, zebra and wildebeests grazed. Lemu pointed out elands, hartebeests and baboons. They watched a young giraffe playing among the acacias. At one point, a troop of elephants with three calves marched across the road.

After a while, Charlotte grew tired and looked straight ahead, over the shoulder of the driver. She was thinking about a girl from her undergraduate college days whose name was Joan. Joan had introduced her to John. They were from the same hometown and Joan thought him a bit of an egghead, just Charlotte’s type. She and John did not date seriously, every date being a study date, or a lecture date or a lab date. Finally, he invited her to a fraternity dance. Watching him dance, she began to think of him as more than just a smart guy and did not resist him when he took her hand to walk her home and kissed her goodnight on the lips. He was too polite, she thought. She didn’t let go of his hand and thought about inviting him in, but that would ruin the study relationship. She let go of his hand. “Just as well,” Joan had said when they talked about the date. “I doubt if he would know what to do.”

“To do what?”

Joan thrust her hips. “You know what.”

Charlotte had rolled her eyes and gone to bed, but all that night she thought of the kiss. The first time she had ever been kissed on the lips.

She put her fingers to her lips.

The road is always changing, but going to the same place—yes—but the holes, the tracks—different from hour to hour. It is the same with the clients. Always different, but yet going to the same place, Lemu was thinking. Where is the man? He could talk with the man. But the women made him nervous. Women clients always made him nervous. They wanted to be treated like queens. They didn’t understand that they were in the bush. The bush, t’is wild. They demanded the impossible. The bush, t’is wild. This man did not. He was easy. Some men, especially, some of the white American men thought themselves kings to their queenly wives. But African American men tried to be his brother—they talked of brotherhood—they called him brother. But this one did not. He was the perfect client. He rode. He watched game. He made no demands.

Lemu drove around a small kopje, a jumble of granite boulders and a large vine-entangled  fig tree whose thick branches spread out lazily over the rocks. Suddenly the vervet monkeys scattered into the branches of the tree, barking a cacophony of catty chatter.  He braked suddenly.

From the upper terrace John looked down on Cam reclining in the sun by the pool. He hadn’t recognized his son at first, scanning over him and then coming back to the lanky boy whose form had, it seemed to John, become broad shouldered and muscular. Overnight. He’s a handsome boy, John thought. Where did that come from? John remembered the feel of the baby Cam, then of the pubescent boy, still willing to hug his father around the waist until he was pried away. Now, the boy—the young man—was transitioning, and the transition did not seem an easy one. John descended to the pool and took the chair next to Cam. Cam looked up, but said nothing. He had in earphones. A woman and two children were the only other people on the patio, except for a server who had come down the stairs after John to ask if he wanted a drink. He ordered a gin and tonic, though it was early for drinking. John saw that Cam’s drink was half finished and looked watery.

For a while nothing was said. What was there to say, and yet John wanted to say something. Something important. “Cam,” he said and then raised his voice. Cam looked at him, scowling.

“Will you take out the earphones?”

“I can hear you.”

“Please. For a just a minute.”

Cam complied.

“I know this isn’t the vacation you wanted.”

“Dad, it’s all right. Mom wanted to come, so we came for her as much as for me.”

John considered. Yes. But what did he owe Charlotte? Long ago he thought he had worked out things with her.

“Mom always likes to get her way.”

John nodded. But why did he let Charlotte have her way?

“But it’s not so bad. I liked seeing all the animals. It’s been interesting. Besides, maybe I’ll go to Europe again when I’m in college. And, Dad…”.  Cam took a deep breath. “Thank you. Thank you for this trip. Thank you for everything. You are a really good Dad.” Suddenly Cam’s face contorted. John couldn’t tell if he were crying behind his shades or not. “I really love you, Dad.”

“I…I love you, too, son.” John’s eyes watered. He wanted to take his son into his arms, but instead he turned away. The server was standing next to him, placing the gin and tonic on the table. The server was a man in his thirties, handsome and clean cut. John wondered if he had ever been to college. If he had ever been to Europe. He did not ask. He said “Asante” in a cracked voice and turned back to Cam.

Charlotte let out a surprised “ha,” and caught herself on the back of the seat as the car stopped. Lemu apologized, turned in the seat looking at his clients and apologized again. “Madames,” he said, slightly contrite, “Do you hear the monkeys? The vervet monkeys? The women listened.

“I don’t hear anything,” Charlotte said. “What am I listening to?”

“That odd barking sound?” asked Marjorie. “A little like a cat sneezing.”

“That is the one,” Lemu said. “It is a warning. There is a predator nearby. A large leopard has been seen at this kopje.”

“Where is it?” Charlotte said.

“We must look to see if we can find it. Most likely it hides in that tree.” He pointed to the fig tree. He pointed out that the monkeys had fled into the upper branches on one side of the tree. The leopard, he thought, would be on the other side, closer to the ground. The women stood under the raised roof and searched with binoculars. Lemu searched from the driver’s seat. Majorie searched methodically, beginning at the base of a boulder the size of a small house. It’s surface, in the field glasses, appeared tan with black speckles and rusty stains, coarse, and in places cracked forming thick scales. As she moved the glasses up, she found shrubs growing where soil had collected in potholes.  Then she found the trunk of the fig tree. It seemed to have been growing out of the rock, but she supposed it was rooted behind it.  Its bark was smooth, gray and blotchy with cloud blue lichen.

“I don’t see anything,” Charlotte said.

“You must be patient. T’is difficult to see. They are the masters of camouflage.”

Majorie thought she saw a tail and sucked in air sharply preparing to say so. But then she realized it was only a small branch.  Nonetheless, her excitement rose. It was like a hunt. A dangerous hunt in Africa, like Hatari! or Out of Africa. Only she was a great black hunter. She had come to see Africa and to be here and only to take memories as trophies.

“Let’s go.” Charlotte seated herself.

“I still want to look,” Majorie said.

“At what?”

Majorie remained standing, scanning the kopje. The air around her became cold and stiff.

“Perhaps, if I drive up a bit and get a different angle,” Lemu said. He started the engine and gently moved the car up, over a bump, into a hole, and out again. When he stopped, they were looking at a narrow face of the boulder and could peer behind it and up a crevice in the hill from which the tree grew. The monkeys continued their agitated barking.

“It will be a big one, if we can see it.”

Charlotte stood again and peered through her binoculars. “Are you sure there is something there?”

“Oh, most certainly. The monkeys see something.”

“Then why can’t I see it?”

“Because you are not a monkey,” Majorie said. She realized she had said it sharply.

Charlotte sat down again. “And I suppose you are a monkey,” she said after a pause. “A chatty little monkey.”

Majorie took a slow, deep breath. She willed herself to let the remark go. If this had been their college days, they would have all been laughing by now and calling each other funny names. The only name Majorie could think of now was “bitch.”

“Can we go now,” Charlotte said to Lemu, “and at least find something we can see.”  Lemu started the engine.

“No.” Majorie said. “I want to look a little while longer. Even if we don’t see it, I want to look.”

The car didn’t move.  After a moment, Lemu said. “Perhaps it is sleeping. They are most active at night.”

“I would still like to look for a few more minutes.”

“I want to go.”

I know you do, Majorie thought, that’s why I want to stay. She continued to stand for a few minutes, then she sat. “Okay.” She cast a weak smile toward Charlotte. “We can go now.” She saw Charlotte stiffen, her eyes narrow, and her jaw tighten. Then, Charlotte looked up, staring stonily at her. The look frightened her, but still she felt she had pinched Charlotte just right. She couldn’t control her face and felt her mouth curl down with a satisfied smirk. Suddenly, Charlotte slapped her. Her head twisted to the side and her vision blackened for a second.

To be continued in the next post which follows immediately