that.’
I didn’t want to accept it. I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable again with hope.
‘Perhaps,’ I said.
‘Damn you.’ He laughed now, and the sound was good for he did not often laugh these days. ‘I should have known you’d fight it. You are without doubt the most miserable bloody pessimist in Africa.’
‘A hundred miles from the nearest surface water? Forget it, Ben! You know as well as I do that this is the —’
‘Don’t say it,’ I almost shouted, and was out of the padded leather chair, across the projection room and had hold of his arm before I realized I had moved.
‘Don’t say it,’ I repeated. ‘It’s - it’s bad luck.’ I always stutter when I am excited, but it is the least of my physical disabilities and I have long ago ceased worrying about it.
Louren laughed again, but with the trace of uneasiness he shows whenever I move quickly or unleash the strength of my arms. He stooped over me now, and eased my fingers that were sunk into the flesh of his forearm.
‘Sorry - did I hurt you?’ I released the grip.
‘No. But he massaged his arm as he moved to the control panel and doused the projector, then turned the wall switch and we stood blinking at each other in the light.
‘My little Yiddish leprechaun,’ he smiled. ‘You cannot fool me. You are wetting yourself.’
I looked up at him, ashamed of my outburst now, but still excited.
‘Where is it, Lo? Where did you find it?’
‘I want you to admit it first. I want you to go out on a limb for once in your life. I want you to say it - before I’ll tell you another thing,’ he teased.
‘All right.’ I looked away and picked my words. ‘It looks, at first glance, quite interesting.’
And he threw back that great golden head and bellowed with bull laughter.
‘You’re going to have to do a lot better than that. Let’s try again.’
His laughter I cannot resist, and my own followed immediately. I was aware of its birdlike quality against his.
‘It looks to me,’ I wheezed, ‘as though you may have found it.’
‘You beauty!’ he shouted. ‘You little beauty.’
It was years since I had seen him like this. The solemn banker’s mask stripped away, the cares of the Sturvesant financial empire forgotten in this moment of promise and achievement.
‘Now tell me,’ I pleaded. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘Come,’ he said, serious again, and we went to the long table against the wall. There was a chart spread and pinned on the green baize. It was a high table, and I scrambled quickly on to a chair and leaned across it. Now I was almost on equal terms with Louren who stood beside me. We pored over the chart.
‘Aeronautical Series A. Southern Africa. Chart 5. Botswana and Western Rhodesia.’
I searched it quickly, looking for some indication - a cross, or pencil mark perhaps.
‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where?’
‘You know that I’ve got twenty-five thousand square miles of mineral concession down here south of Maun —’
‘Come on, Lo. Don’t try and sell me shares in Sturvesant Minerals. Where the hell is it?’
‘We’ve put a landing-strip in here that will take the Lear jet. Just finished it.’
‘It can’t be that far south of the gold series.’
‘It isn’t,’ Louren reassured me. ‘Throttle back, you’ll rupture something.’ He was enjoying himself tormenting me.
His finger moved across the chart, and stopped suddenly - my heart seemed to stop with it. It was looking better and better. The latitude was perfect, all the clues I had so painstakingly gathered over the years pointed to this general area.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Two hundred and twelve miles south-east of Maun, fifty-six miles from the south-western beacon of the Wankie game reserve, tucked below a curve of low hills, lost in a wilderness of rock and dry land scrub.’
‘When can we leave?’ I asked.
‘Wow!’ Louren shook his head. ‘You do believe it. You really do!’
‘Someone else could stumble on it.’
‘It’s been lying there for a thousand years - another week won’t—’
‘Another week!’ I cried in anguish.
‘Ben, I can’t get away before then. I’ve got the Annual General Meeting of Anglo-Sturvesant on Friday, and on Saturday I have business in Zurich - but I’ll cut it short, especially for you.’
