Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

“And Russell?”

“Upstaged by Jeavons. He’s gone too.”

“Jeavons has been very busy.”

“He certainly has. I got an inkling of it before … Remember I was in a long committee meeting?”

“I think so.”

“Well, we’d just had word from London that, as part of an educational-scientific collaboration between Britain and post-independence Kenya, the British—thanks to Jeavons, the science minister—were proposing a Kihara Institute of Human Origins, with a ten-year budget, and for which they are quite happy to give Marongo the credit, providing he hands in his Kalashnikovs. Sutton’s withdrawal left Marongo high and dry, the more so as one or two of the papers here went for him after the trial ended, saying he was more interested in politics than justice. But Jeavons’s plan rescued him, politically, and after those Maasai villagers saw you pulling Daniel from the plane, a white person saving the life of a black person, Marongo has swung back to us, praising the fairness of white justice, praising you and your work, welcoming the new institute, and proposing—wait for it—that my mother be buried in the gorge, as a mark of respect for what she achieved.”

Jack again smiled briefly at her. “You have to hand it to Marongo. He’s as good a politician as Jeavons. The symmetry is eye catching. What started in a burial ground ends in one too.”

For as far as the eye could see, Maasai figures wrapped in dark red cloaks stood on the low ridges of the rolling Serengeti hills that surrounded the quartzite gash of Kihara Gorge. The late afternoon sun was still hot but not the fireball it had been earlier and there were clouds low on the horizon. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty dark-green four-wheeled vehicles were parked neatly in a row on the lip of the gorge, overlooking RSK, Richard Sutton’s Korongo. A wind was beginning to stir.

In front of what looked like a small cave in the wall of the gorge stood Aldwai with his rifle. Next to him, with shovels, stood three Maasai. They had dug the grave and would fill it in later.

Two parallel lines of people stood at right angles to the wall of the gorge on either side of the grave. One was made up of Maasai elders, with Marongo at the distant end. The other line was made up of personnel from the camp, plus the minister of justice from Nairobi, who hadn’t gone to the conference in London, the deputy minister of education, representatives of the university, the president of the Karibu Club, Henry Radcliffe from the Bell-Ryder Foundation, and Natalie and Jack opposite Marongo.

It was Natalie’s second day out of hospital. Jack had flown her to the gorge in a rented aircraft. She knew she had to get back in a plane sooner or later. The pain around her middle was under control, with drugs, and the crutches helped.

Christopher wasn’t there. He hadn’t been found.

There were to be sandwiches and drinks back in the camp afterwards, a short reception so that those who had to fly back to Nairobi could leave before dark.

A box was brought from the Land Rover nearest the grave site. A very small box, Eleanor’s remains, carried by Beth, her daughter—Jack and Christopher’s sister—who had arrived from Boston. Virginia and her husband had come from Palestine. They were at Beth’s side.

Maxwell Sandys was being buried in Nairobi. Owen Nelson’s funeral would come later, at the church in Lincolnshire where Violette, his wife, Natalie’s mother, was buried. Owen had always believed he would be reunited with his wife one day. Natalie didn’t share that view, but she knew that their remains belonged together. For now his were in a box, in her room, in the hotel in Nairobi. She fought back tears just thinking of them.

Beth, a beautiful, slim blond woman, was holding up well, Natalie thought. She held herself erect, had a firm step, not a hair on her head was out of place. There could be no doubt she was Eleanor’s daughter. Virginia, tall in the Deacon way, was more tearful but comforted by her husband.

As Beth and Virginia reached the lines of people, Marongo stepped forward. He gripped the staff he always held at gatherings and raised it high. At this, the Maasai began to sing. A slow, lilting melody gradually spread around the hills, through a vast choir of hundreds in which Marongo showed himself as having a fine voice.

Across the gorge, Natalie could see Mgina, with Endole and his other wives, all singing in unison. Mgina: she never had found out if the young woman was anything more than she seemed.

“Ah, I know this,” whispered Jack. “It’s a lament called ‘The Clouds Beneath the Sun,’ and is about Ollantashante and his exploits on the battlefield, ending with his heroic death.” He gasped. “Am I mistaken or is that Mutevu Ndekei across the gorge?”

Natalie looked to where Jack indicated.

“You’re right. And Atape.”

Natalie had never heard anything so beautiful as the lament. Jack explained that it concerned a raid on the Maasai villages by another tribe, who had assembled on a windy night, when their movements had been masked by the sound of whistling thorn. Ollantashante had single-handedly blocked a path up from the gorge, while reinforcements had been alerted. He had himself been killed after slaying a score of the enemy.

“Marongo once asked me to translate this song into English,” whispered Jack. “I forget most of it but not the last lines, which were very beautiful, about how, at the end of a whole day’s battle, the clouds cover the sun, the wind dies, the thorn stops whistling and dies to a moan, the enemy withdraws, beaten, but the land remains: “Across the gorge, the day sinks with a hum,

A little beauty lost, a little less to come .

“That’s not a literal translation, of course, but it keeps to the spirit.”

Natalie began to weep. She was getting used to weeping now.

Jack took her arm and they moved out of the line and stood on the other side of Beth and Virginia from Marongo.

Jack knew, as his sisters knew, that Eleanor had always wished to be buried with Jock in Nairobi. But Jack also knew—as his mother would have insisted—that Marongo’s offer could not be refused. Eleanor would have approved Jack’s decision, he knew that too. Natalie realized that, politically, the burial would cement the relationship between the Maasai and the paleontologists as nothing else would.

As the singing continued, Marongo, Beth, Virginia, Jack, and Natalie approached the small hole dug in the wall of the gorge. Standing to one side was a Maasai warrior in full regalia, black and white stone jewelry, a long red cloak, a staff made from whistling thorn. As Beth and the others got close, he stepped forward and placed a toy spear on the top of the box she was carrying.

“It is their way,” said Jack. “The spear is to help on the other side. And it means Eleanor had warrior status. She was not just an ordinary person. It’s a mark of respect.”

Now Aldwai stepped forward. He raised his old rifle and fired three times into the air. A flock of birds in some nearby acacia trees scattered against the clouds beginning to cover the sun.

Beth bent down and placed the box in the hole. She pushed it further in and stood back.

The men who had dug the hole moved forward to fill it. As they did so the singing stopped and a single voice, a fine baritone, was left to sing solo.

“That,” murmured Jack, “is to emphasize that our journey to the other side is one that we take alone.”

Natalie, as so often before, marveled at the simple beauty of Maasai symbolism.

As the hole was filled in and the gravediggers stood back, the soloist fell silent. Now there was just the wind.

Marongo turned and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “At last your kind are buried here. This land is your land as much as it is ours.” He nodded, smiled, and turned away.