Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Natalie’s anger flared briefly, at Eleanor’s tone.

Silence around the table.

“And you say Maxwell was acting … shiftily?”

“That’s how it seemed to me. I think a racist judge has been chosen so as to make Natalie think twice about giving evidence.”

“If Beth were here, she might be able to get something out of her godfather.”

“Well, I couldn’t, that’s for sure. Why don’t you have a go? You’ve known him far longer.”

Natalie noticed a flash of something pass across Eleanor’s face, un coup d’oeil , as the French said. What was it? An instant softening? A fond memory? Jack had raised the thought, the evening before, that Eleanor and Maxwell Sandys had once been lovers. As he had insisted, Nairobi was a small place, especially the society of whites. Was the idea so far-fetched?

But the flash of something, whatever it was, had melted away immediately, and Eleanor was growling, “I can try, I suppose, but I doubt he’d say anything over the radio-telephone, where everyone can hear. And I’ve no plans to go to Nairobi anytime soon.”

She placed her knife and fork together with her food half finished. “I’ve no appetite tonight. I can’t eat, I can’t relax, I can’t concentrate. What a mess this is.”

She took off her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

“This has all the makings of a first-class catastrophe. The destruction of the gorge! Thirty years of work overturned in a few moments.” She fiddled with her hair and sighed. “Here we are, on the verge of not one but two major discoveries, two epoch-making announcements, that will put Kenya on the map internationally—and what happens? This site, this gorge, this marvel of nature and science, where it all takes place, which in a few years could become a major tourist attraction, and a major revenue earner, is to be destroyed, vandalized, any possibility of new discoveries thrown to the lions—literally.”

Eleanor was looking intently at Natalie as she said this, and Natalie felt herself coloring.

“The Maasai visit the gorge almost daily now. And not children, with goats, but warriors, with spears. They just watch, but it’s enough, for now.”

“I … I can understand your anger, or disappointment, Eleanor. But … but you’re not suggesting I don’t give evidence, surely?”

“It wouldn’t work, anyway,” interjected Arnold Pryce. “If Natalie withdrew her evidence, think what a fuss Russell and Richard’s parents would make.”

“But we’d get over it.” Eleanor thrust her chin forward, the skin on her throat stretched tight. “Yes, there’d be a stink, a big, unpleasant explosion of self-righteousness … but, at the end of it all, there’d still be a gorge. The site would still exist. The discoveries would go on.”

Silence around the table.

Natalie looked at each of the other diners in turn. “I saw what I saw, Eleanor. That’s all. You told me to write it down immediately, which I did.” She hesitated. “Richard did wrong—yes. But did he deserve to die? You can’t believe that he did.” She took a deep breath. There was something she had to say. “You all seem to be taking Richard’s death very lightly. So lightly that, if you must know, I am shocked by your attitude. It’s not right, it’s not normal … it’s not human.”

Eleanor curled her fingers around her spectacles, mangling them out of shape. “I was born in Africa, my dear. I’m an African. I live with African ways and I understand and sympathize with a lot of them. What is happening here in the gorge is, in my view, one of the most important intellectual activities in the entire continent. It is helping to make Africa more important, more interesting, more attractive, more a part of the wider world—and that far outweighs one death, however regrettable.”

She brushed a strand of hair off her face. “Yes, I told you to write down what you had seen immediately. But I didn’t know then what I know now—that this whole venture is at risk. I responded as anyone would have responded on hearing of Richard’s death, and then learning what you had seen. But now … now the situation has changed—and my view has changed with it. To put the gorge at risk, all the discoveries that have been made and remain to be made … I shudder and despair at the idea. I repeat: intellectually, the gorge is at the heart of Africa, of the world , it is where man began, all mankind. Very little is more important than that—”

“Mother—!” began Christopher.

“It’s all right,” said Natalie quickly. “I can defend myself.” She gripped her water glass tightly and hunched forward over the table. Her anger was rising and she fought to control it. “Paleontology is a Western idea,” she said at length, “not an African custom. If Kihara is at the heart of Africa, of the world as you put it, then it’s thanks as much to modern Western notions as to anything else. The Maasai have grazed cattle in the gorge for generations but have shown not the slightest interest in the fossils here or the stratigraphy. So the very fact that the gorge is emerging as important is due to a mix—a marriage, a symbiosis—of African and modern realities. Eleanor, you are not an African in the sense that the Maasai are.” She gulped some water. “I can’t withdraw my evidence.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Won’t, can’t … it’s the same thing. I saw what I saw—you want me to unsee that? What Richard and Russell did was foolhardy—and yes, wrong, very wrong. How many times do I have to say that? But what Mutevu did to Richard was worse, much, much worse—and before you say anything, yes, I can see the Maasai point of view, I can even sympathize with it.” Her fingers touched her mother’s single pearls at her ears. What she would give to talk this over with her father, or with Dom. They were both clear thinkers, with a well-developed sense of right and wrong. They would surely agree with the stance she was taking.

Or would they? Dominic had a very strong practical, pragmatic streak. He was aware of how the world worked, the real world of give-and-take, of cutting your losses when it was impossible to do otherwise. Her father was more idealistic and, had what happened with her mother not happened, would surely take her side now. But Dominic? Now she thought of it, she couldn’t be so sure.

Natalie cupped her hands around her water glass. “I’m not sure there’s anything new to say tonight. In Nairobi, Jack and Maxwell Sandys tried to dissuade me by saying I will be vilified by political militants. You appeal to a different aspect of my makeup.”

Natalie sighed. “I understand both arguments. I don’t want to get involved in a political cause célèbre and I’ve grown to love the gorge. But …” She bit her lip. “Our tradition … of independent witnesses, juries, rules of evidence … I mean … it may be called modern but it’s just as old as Maasai ways. Their traditions are no more than a couple of hundred years old, aren’t they? Ours, in fact, are older.” She clenched her clammy fist. “That doesn’t make them any more right, but it doesn’t make them any more wrong either.”

She rubbed the palms of her hands on her trousers. “So I’m sorry if you feel I am betraying you—that’s not how I see it, and I hope you can too, in time.” She looked directly at Eleanor. “You selected Richard. He, with Daniel and Russell, made a great discovery. Significant. Don’t you feel you owe him something? The dig, Kihara … we all benefit from Richard’s work.”

“She’s right, mother.” Jack offered his support before anyone else could speak.

But Eleanor was in no hurry to be heard. She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand, revealing a damp patch on her shirt under her arm.