Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Before he could interrupt, she waved him down. “I love Kihara, the nights as much as the days and, Richard’s death apart, I’ve had the most amazing start to my time here. Better than I could have hoped for scientifically, much better.” She broke off a piece of bread from a roll. “But I daren’t think ahead. From what Max was saying, with these independence talks coming up, the trial may be seen as political in some way—and create a huge fuss. I don’t want that and I’m sure you don’t. The only publications I want my name in are academic journals.”

She stopped. The waiter had reappeared to take their orders. She chose sea bass—who knew when she would see fresh fish again? Jack had the beef. She opted to stay on whiskey and he preferred beer. The waiter went away again.

His eyes held hers. “I understand that. There is, however, something you don’t know. Something that my mother doesn’t know and something that not even Maxwell Sandys knew when you were with him.”

Another short silence, until she murmured, “Go on.”

He took a sip of water, to ease the dryness in his throat. “That lawyer, Tombe Nshone, who left the room with me … we went for a walk in the grounds of the courthouse. He had a message.” Jack leaned forward and lowered his voice. “He made his point by saying that he’s from the same tribe as Ndekei. He has law degrees from London and Toronto but he is a Maasai. His message was from the elders—they’re called loibone.”

He paused. “As you know, the Maasai regard the gorge as their land, to do with as they please.”

He paused again.

Natalie searched his face for some clue as to what was coming. There was a solid lump of foreboding in her stomach.

“Ndekei will plead not guilty. We knew that. But …” He looked around. The dining room was filling up though so far there was no one at the tables next to them.

“But,” he went on, “if Mutevu is convicted, the Maasai will exercise their right to reoccupy the gorge. Only they won’t just occupy it. They will destroy it.” Jack’s hair had flopped forward again, but this time he left it where it was. “They say that Kihara is the root of the problem. They say we white people are more interested in bones that are millions of years old, that have turned to stone, that belong to no one with a name, than we are in their recent ancestors. They say that if they destroy the gorge, if they hack into the walls and occupy the area with their goats and cattle, we will go away and there will be no repeat of this problem. Their burial ground will be safe.”

He fell silent, knowing the effect this would be having on Natalie.

“I know there’s a lot of racial thinking in Britain, Natalie, but I tell you this: these people are not stupid or politically naive. They know that, with independence in the offing, this case pits modern thinking against traditional practices and will receive a lot of attention. So their threat is not a feint. It plays into the hands of both the Marxists and the Muslims.”

He sat back as the food arrived.

Natalie said nothing while the plates were laid before them. Her distraught features said all that needed saying.

Jack continued as though he hadn’t noticed the food.

“It turns out that the actual grave which Richard and Russell looted wasn’t just anyone’s. It belonged to a great warrior, one the Maasai have remembered and revered for generations.” He pushed back his hair at last. “Years ago—I mean in the nineteenth century—the Maasai never buried their dead. They left them in the bush, wrapped in their favorite cloaks, to be eaten by scavengers—hyenas, lions, vultures. It sounds grisly to us—but it makes sense in a hot country with wild, savage animals who might dig up corpses.” He finally noticed his food and sprinkled salt and pepper on it. “Then, at the turn of the century, the Maasai were converted to Christianity—or some of them were. They started to bury their dead—but not everyone, only the chiefs and warriors and their wives, their great ancestors. They built a fence around a small but important burial ground to keep the animals out, although their goats feed there because, for obvious reasons, the burial ground is fertile and bushes and trees do well there.”

He cut into his food.

“But ordinary people are still disposed of in the traditional way. The Maasai are now this weird mixture of Christian and pagan—”

“Yes, I know,” Natalie cut in. She told him about Mgina’s brother, Odnate, and what had happened, her visit with Christopher and Kees to the sand dune.

“There you are,” said Jack. “Exactly my point. And the defense will make a lot of that.” He rubbed a scar over his eye. “I don’t want to lay it on too thick, Natalie, but the defense will allege that you were having an affair with Richard, that Russell was jealous, and that is the real reason Richard was killed, and Ndekei was set up, Russell being sent away to cover up. And that therefore you are almost as much to blame as they were, that you are part of a conspiracy and made up your evidence—”

“But you know that’s not true!”

“ I know it, yes. And Ndekei knows it. But they’ve obviously heard from someone within the camp, or Mutevu himself, about your late-night whiskey sessions with Russell. They’re going to make this a racial thing, a tribal thing—modern Western law against traditional custom. You are the only witness and you will be caught in the middle. With these independence talks in the background, it could get … unpleasant.”

The solid mass of foreboding in Natalie’s stomach had grown denser and expanded. “Tombe told you all that?”

He nodded, let a pause go by, then said, “Okay, okay. Enough. Let’s change the subject. We can’t take this further tonight in any case.” He paused to chew some beef. He signaled the waiter for another round of drinks. His previous order seemed to have been overlooked.

She didn’t stop him.

They ate in silence for a while.

Another plane went by overhead. From the straining sound it was taking off, not landing, probably bound for Europe, maybe London. What had happened to her call to her father?

Eventually, Jack said, “I saw the CV you sent my mother, so I know about your schooling and your degrees, I know you’re a Gainsborough girl and that your father is a choirmaster, but what else? Never been married? Never sung in a rock band? Never swum the Channel?” He smiled, doing his best to relax her. “All right, I’ll make a guess that you have never swum the Channel. But what about marriage—ever been close?”

“Why don’t we start with you, instead?” Natalie wasn’t calm yet, but she tried to appear so, resting her chin on her fist. “You go first. I haven’t even seen your CV, so we need to even things up a bit.”

The fresh drinks arrived. She tried her fish again. The ball of foreboding still clogged her stomach.

Jack seemed to have an appetite for both of them. He chewed his beef with gusto, washing it down with the new glass of beer.

“I was brought up here,” he said when he could. “In Africa. The local schools were pretty primitive, so for the first few years my parents taught me at home. I have two sisters, one two years younger, the other three years younger. I was allowed to dig very early on and both my parents spoke fluent Swahili, as well as English, so I did too, when I was fairly young. I know a good bit about wildlife as well, growing up in the bush. But just before war broke out, in 1939, the family moved to England. My father had an appointment at Cambridge and for the next seven years we lived there. After a childhood in the bush, I found Cambridge irksome. I liked the fens well enough, and the coast, watching out for German planes and submarines, the way boys imagine these things. But it can get pretty cold in Cambridge and I hated things like the Boy Scouts and doing a newspaper round, and once the war was over, I couldn’t wait to get back to Africa.”