‘God, yes. And I…’
‘You kissed me.’
He blushed. It was a comfortable, old-fashioned thing to see in a man.
‘Gaby McAslan,’ he said. ‘You do those “And Finally” pieces for Sky Net On-line. I liked the one about the bicycle pump fetishists; the guy down in Dar Es Salaam who thought he’d go one better and shoved a compressed air-line up his ass and blew his colon out through his navel. You’ve caught the real spirit of Africa in those stories. Magic realism is plain old day-to-day living here.’
‘I’ve moved on a bit since the “And Finally” pieces.’
‘The Peter Werther interview. That was quite a coup.’
‘Thank you.’ The moment presented itself. ‘Listen, I’d very much like to do an interview with you; would you have any objections to talking over lunch? There’s supposed to be a place does very good Indian food here, if it hasn’t closed up.’
‘There still is. It does. The Tipsi Cafe. Regrettably, I’ll have to pass on your generous offer; straight after this they’re flying me up to the Nyandarua Impact Zone.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In fact, they’re holding the plane for me right now. If you want an interview, it’s simplest to get in touch directly with Tsavo West.’ He scribbled a number on the back of Gaby’s hand, next to ‘buckyball jungle’. ‘Don’t wash that. I’ll be up in Nairobi for the Ambassador’s Independence Day Hootenanny, but I don’t suppose you’ll be there?’
The very rich, the very beautiful, the very glamorous and the very influential were invited to the US Ambassador’s Fourth of July party. No one less than the rank of station head, or chief correspondent.
‘You never know,’ Gaby said. ‘Life’s full of surprises.’ ‘I reckoned that.’ Dr Shepard packed up his stuff in an impact-plastic briefcase and pulled an overnight bag from under the table. ‘By the way, might I say, it was an ass exceedingly well worth saving.’
16
The Tipsi Cafe was one of those refreshing places that surpass their reputations. The food was wonderful, generous, cheap and served unpretentiously on plastic plates. Everything tasted faintly of charcoal. Over goat sagh, lentils, two vegetable curries, chutneys and chapattis, Gaby picked Ute Bonhorst for everything she knew about Dr Shepard.
‘He’s forty-one, comes from Lincoln, Nebraska. His primary degree was at Iowa State in molecular biology; he graduated in 1988, did his doctorate at UCSB in biophysics and the speculative exobiology of interstellar clouds. When UNECTA received its UN charter in 2006, he was immediately head-hunted.’
‘I don’t want his
‘You have to call him Shepard. He has a first name but he never uses it and no one knows what it is. He’s divorced – it was a messy affair, I think – he has two boys who come out to stay with him twice a year. Currently he is unattached. Which makes him the most sought-after male in East Africa. Abigail Santini has been trying to get him into her bed for almost two years without any success. Are you thinking of joining the line?’
‘He interests me, that’s all.’ From the look she received, Gaby knew Ute did not believe her. She was not sure she believed herself, but this Shepard did seem to be the only truly solid person she had met in Africa. White person. Tembo, Faraway,
Mrs Kivebulaya, even Haran the Sheriff and Dr Dan sweating with fear in his executive class seat; these were real, firmly rooted in the landscape, casting dark shadows. The African light was too bright for white people; it shone through them, it bleached them pale and insubstantial. Dr Shepard stood full in the light and was not annihilated by it. He threw his shadow across the land, his feet were firmly planted in it, like the Masai standing with arrogant nobility outside the stores at the top of the town.
The decision was made while waiting at the crossing for the daily chemical train to pass. In front of the Sky Net Vitara was an open truck. Men were seated in the open back. Seeing white women in an open top car, an old man reached under his robe and began to masturbate gently, unselfconsciously. The train cleared the crossing. The truck turned left, toward Nairobi. Gaby turned right toward the Chaga.
‘What are you doing?’ Ute Bonhorst said, alarmed.
Gaby pushed the 4x4 into top gear.
‘I’m going to see the Chaga. I’ve been three months in Nairobi working with this thing, living it, eating it, drinking it, sleeping with it, dreaming of it, and now I’m this close I’m not going to let a few miles stop me.’
‘We have no clearances.’
‘That won’t be a problem. Trust me.’
The road south was wide and swept over the low hills of the thorn scrub country. There was not another vehicle. Gaby pressed her right foot to the floor and pushed the Suzuki to its limits. Her long frustration went out of her like a colossal sigh, months deep, and the vacuum it left was filled with the sudden vertigo that comes when you find you have the courage and freedom to do what you most want in the world. She wished this road could go on for ever; at the same time she could not wait for it to bring her to her destination.
They ran into the checkpoint five miles south of Ilbisil. Three pig-ugly South African Defence Force APCs were pulled across the road. A black soldier in a blue helmet with green, blue and black ANC flashes on his lapels waved them down.
‘Good afternoon, ladies. Could you show me some identification, please?’
He passed the driving licenses and SkyNet accreditations to an officer sitting at a camp table on the verge, eating his lunch. While the officer studied the documents, the soldier walked slowly around the car, looking at trivial things in a vaguely intimidating way, as bored soldiers at checkpoints do.
‘Can I ask where you’re going?’ the soldier asked, growing tired of the game of vague intimidation.
‘Oh, south.’ Gaby waved her hand in the general direction of Tanzania. ‘We want to have a look at the Chaga.’
‘Sightseeing?’
‘You could say that.’
The officer wiped his mouth with a bush-camouflage napkin and came over to the Vitara. He and the soldier spoke briefly in Xhosa.
‘Can I see your pass authorizations, please?’
Gaby opened her bag and with one hand folded a thousand shilling note in the way Faraway had taught her was best for bribing policemen. She slipped it palm down to the South African officer. He glanced at it and passed it back to Gaby.
‘That is not a pass authorization.’ The officer looked up into the sky, then at Gaby. ‘Excuse me, but could you tell me what time it is?’
‘You’ve got a watch on your wrist,’ Ute said.
‘The officer’s may be broken,’ Gaby said, unfastening her Swatch. ‘Mine keeps good time, see?’ She passed it to the officer.
‘Very good time indeed.’ He slipped the Swatch into a button-down breast-pocket. ‘I would give you a word of advice. For your own safety, we do not recommend that you go any further down this road than the Mile 70 marker post.’ The officer saluted and smiled beautifully. Gaby put the Vitara into gear, waved and drove off.
‘You bribed that officer.’ Ute Bonhorst’s innate Teutonic respect for authority was outraged.
‘Certainly did,’ said Gaby McAslan, child of an ungovernable people.
Beyond the checkpoint the road dipped down into a river valley and climbed abruptly. At the top of the valley side it swung to the right. The car took hill and bend easily.
And there it was.
Gaby pulled in under a great baobab. She got out of the car and went to the edge of the road where the land fell away to the Amboseli plains. She squatted on her heels and looked at the Chaga. The Zeiss-Leica optomolecules bonded to her corneas darkened.
In her summer on the west coast of the United States, she had detoured to the Grand Canyon. The bus had left her at the door of one of the lodges. In the dark, low-beamed interior she had found a sign, quite small, easily
