I am aware that Timothy edits the information he passes on to me - some of it is too secret, the taboos which surround it too powerful to disclose to other than an initiate of the mysteries. I am sure that much of this withheld information relates to the legend of the ancients. I, however, never abandon my attempts to milk him.
On the Monday morning of Louren’s return from Switzerland, Sally was so overwrought by the possibility that Louren would veto her inclusion in the preliminary expedition that her company was unbearable. To escape her and to kill the last long waiting hours, I went down to Timothy.
He works in a tiny room - we are a little pressed for space at the Institute - which is congested with neatly stacked pamphlets, books, folders, and piles of loose paper that reach almost to the ceiling, and yet there is room for my chair. This is a long-legged affair like a bar-room stool. For although my legs and arms are regulation size, or better, my trunk is squashed and humped so that from the seat of an ordinary chair I have trouble seeing over the top of a desk.
‘Machane! Blessed one!’ Timothy rose with his usual greeting as I entered. According to Bantu lore those of us with club feet, albino pigmentation, squint eyes, and humped backs are blessed by the spirits and endowed with physic powers. I derive a sneaky sort of pleasure from this belief, and Timothy’s greeting always gives me a lift.
I hopped up on my chair, and began a desultory conversation which flicked from subject to subject and changed from language to language. Timothy and I are proud of our talents - and I suppose we do show off a little. There is no other man living, of this I am convinced, who could follow one of our conversations from beginning to end.
‘It will be strange,’ I said at last in I forget what language, ‘not to have you along on a journey. It will be the first time in ten years, Timothy.’
He was immediately silent and wary. He knew I was going to start again on the lost city. I had shown him the photograph five days before, and had been pumping him steadily ever since for some significant comment. I changed into English.
‘Anyway, you are probably not missing anything. Another groping for shadows. God knows there have been many of those. If only I knew what to look for.’
I broke off and froze with expectancy. Timothy’s eyes had glazed. It is a physical thing, an opaque blueish film seems to cover the eyeballs. His head sinks down on the thick corded column of the neck, his lips twitch - and the goose flesh runs up my arms and the hair on the back of my neck fans erect.
I waited. As often as I had seen it I could never shake off the supernatural thrill of watching Timothy going into trance. Sometimes it is involuntary - a word, a thought will trigger it, and the reflex is almost instantaneous. Then again it can be a deliberate act of auto-hypnosis, but this involves preparation and ritual.
This time it was spontaneous, and I waited eagerly knowing that if the material was taboo it would be but a few seconds only before Timothy broke the spell with a deliberate effort of will.
‘Evil—’ he spoke in the quavering, high-pitched voice of an old man. The voice of his grandfather. A little spittle wet the thick purple lips,‘—an evil to be cleaned from the earth and from the minds of men, for ever.’
His head jerked, the conscious mind intervening, his lips worked loosely. The brief internal struggle - and suddenly bis eyes cleared. He looked at me and saw me.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured in English, turning his eyes away now. Embarrassed by the involuntary display, and the need to exclude me. ‘Would you like some coffee, Doctor? They have repaired the kettle at last.’
I sighed. Timothy had switched off, there would be no more communication that day. He was closed up and defensive. To use his own expression, he had ‘turned nigger’ on me.
‘No thanks, Timothy.’ I looked at my watch and slipped off the stool. ‘Still some last-minute things to do.’
‘Go in peace, Machane, and the spirits guide your feet.’ We shook hands.
‘Stay in peace, Timothy, and if the spirits are kind I will send for you.’
Standing on the rail of the coffee bar in the main hall of Jan Smuts Airport I had a good view of the entrance to the international terminal.
‘Damn it,’ I swore.
‘What is it?’ Sal asked anxiously.
‘BYM - a whole platoon of them.’
‘What are BYM?’
‘Bright young men. Sturvesant executives. There, you see the four of them beside the bank counter.’
‘How do you know they are Sturvesant men?’ she asked.
‘Haircuts, short back and sides. Uniforms, dark cashmere suits and plain ties. Expressions, tense and ulcer- ridden but poised to blossom as the big man appears.’ And then I added in an unaccustomed fit
‘Is that him?’ asked Sally, and pointed.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s him.’
Louren Sturvesant came out of the doors of the international terminal, the first of the Zurich flight through customs and immigration, the airport public relations officer trotting to keep pace with him. Two other BYM a pace behind him on either side. Probably a third taking care of his luggage. The four waiting men broke into smiles that seemed to light the hall and hurried forward in order of seniority for a brief handclasp and then fell into formation around Louren. Two of them running interference ahead of him, the others closing in at either hand. The public relations officer fell back bewildered to the tail of the field, and Anglo-Sturvesant drove across the crowded floor like an advancing Panzer division.
In their midst Louren stood out by a golden curly head, his sun-bronzed features grim in contrast to the artificial smiles around him.
‘Come on!’ I caught Sally’s hand and dived into the crowd. I am good at this. I go in at the level of their legs - and the pressure from this unexpected level cleaves them open like the waters of the Red Sea. Sally ran through
