Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

“Yes. Isn’t it spectacular?”

He nodded. “Much more so than the cave at Ndutu.”

Careful. “No rock art in Ngorongoro.”

“Did you see any of those lions with their black manes?”

“Yes, we did. We had to scramble back in the plane when they turned up.”

“What else did you do?”

What did he mean by that?

“There wasn’t time to do much else. We listened to the flamingos, making their racket, and—oh, yes, I had a flying lesson on the way back.”

“Jack’s offered to teach you to fly?”

“Hardly. He just let me take the controls for a few minutes, see how the plane responded. But I loved it and, yes, I’d like to learn.”

“So he’ll be taking you up again?”

She hadn’t replied immediately. Christopher wasn’t just making conversation. His late-night visit wasn’t a casual passing of the time.

On their visit to the cave at Ndutu, he had kissed her cheek. The day before, as they were leaving Ngorongoro, Jack had done much the same. She hadn’t come to Kihara looking for romance, but Dominic was a shadow hanging over her, a weight dragging her down, and she knew that she wouldn’t get him out of her system without … well, without someone else being around.

The cave at Ndutu had been a magical experience—the shadows cast on the stone walls by the firelight had been like giant butterflies opening and closing their wings, the roar of some nearby lions had been close enough to shake the ground, and the crowds of wildlife at the lake below the cave, the next morning, reminded Natalie of what she had imagined Eden to be when she was a girl. But, if she were honest with herself, it didn’t begin to compare with the moment they had crested the ring of Ngorongoro in Jack’s plane and she had seen what was below and beyond. Nothing had given her the sense of freedom, of exhilaration, of cleanness, nothing had ever thrilled her like that moment. She had met women at Cambridge who described taking drugs as getting “a high.” But that was only metaphor: Ngorongoro had been the real thing.

And, she couldn’t help but notice, Christopher had faded into the background since Jack had arrived, until tonight, save for that remark to Jack the evening before they left for Nairobi for the deposition, when he had admonished his brother to bring Natalie back “in one piece.”

Two kisses on the cheek, by two brothers, didn’t amount to very much, but the fact that they were brothers and that Christopher was here, asking the questions he was asking, suggested that something was going on inside him. Both Eleanor and Jack had spoken of Christopher’s jealousy—was that what this late-night visit was all about?

She said, “You’re learning to fly—you told me. Why shouldn’t a woman?” That distanced the conversation from the three of them.

“It’s a pity I haven’t qualified yet. Otherwise, I could teach you. Lucky Jack.”

He had got up and left then. Not in a huff exactly, she thought, but certainly rather brusquely.

She told herself she’d have to do something to make Christopher feel easier, with her and with himself. She didn’t want to pit the brothers against one another, or get caught in the crossfire. She needed to be gentle but firm. With Christopher she could never—

She looked across to the refectory area and smiled. Some monkeys had got into the camp and Naiva was chasing them away.

Natalie went back to her letter to Russell. I can’t face the way I used to face when I sit and wind down at the end of the day. Since Richard’s death, I don’t want to relive what I saw that night. You’ve probably not heard but the local Maasai have said that if Ndekei is convicted, and hanged, they will reoccupy the gorge and destroy it. Only in that way, they say, will the crime that Richard and you committed not be repeated. Of course, we are all devastated by this news, if it is actually carried through, but from it you will see that, first, it was right for Eleanor to send you away: you were definitely in danger. And two, you can perhaps imagine what it has done and is doing to my peace of mind. I must give evidence: it’s the way I am made, the way I was brought up, and I owe it to Richard and to you, Russell, but the dilemma is horrible, irreconcilable. In my first season of digging, amid all the exciting and important discoveries, I am going to be instrumental in destroying the very place that makes everything possible . And I have to live with it every moment of every day. Every night, when I relax, or try to, it’s all I can think of . I repeat: if you have any feeling for me, Russell, think very hard and do not make more of a fuss than you have already made. You will be doing more harm than good . I look forward to your next letter . Natalie

“Natalie, look down now. That’s a sight you can’t see anywhere else in the world.”

Natalie did as she was told, and looked down to her left. Set against the champagne color of the grass was a long, luscious, red-brown streak, black in parts, shining and moving in the sun. Thousands and thousands of animals—wildebeest, zebra, impala—all on the move, all nose to tail, all moving at a pace somewhere between a trot and a gallop, stretched out like a great stain on the landscape.

She judged that the aircraft they were in was flying at about a thousand feet, though as this was only her fourth time in Jack’s Comanche she was hardly an expert. He had told her he liked to fly low, unlike Maxwell Sandys, who liked to fly high, above five thousand feet, where the air was thinner and faster, but the view of the animals nowhere near as good.

It had been Jack’s idea that she come. He was giving Christopher a flying lesson—his brother was at the controls right now—and Jack had combined it with an overflight of the great animal migration that took part in the Serengeti and Maasai Mara, more or less throughout the year. Kees van Schelde was also with them.

“Where are they going?” asked Kees. “ Why are they going?”

“Just keep her as she is,” said Jack to Christopher. “Keep on a bearing of a hundred and ten degrees.” He turned in his seat, so he could address Kees and Natalie together. “They go in search of rain-ripened grass, that’s what ungulates—hoofed mammals like wildebeest and zebra—feed on. The rains go in a rough circle—north at one point in the year, east at another, south later in the season, and so on—so the animals do too. Right now, they’re heading east and south, back out of Kenya down into Tanganyika.”

He turned back. “Okay,” he said to Christopher. “Climb to three thousand feet and then turn for home—that will be a bearing of one hundred and ninety-five degrees.”

Christopher pulled back on the control stick and the aircraft began to rise.

“Christopher!” said Jack in an irritated voice. “What did I tell you? Say out loud what you are doing, so air-traffic control at Kilimanjaro knows what to expect. There are other people in the sky, you know.”

“Bugger! I forgot again. Sorry,” said Christopher. “Can’t they see us on the radar?”

“Yes, but all pilots try to make it easy for them. Our lives may depend on them someday.”

Christopher held the speaker to his lips. “Tango Zulu Delta one-one-niner Echo, rising to four thousand feet,” said Christopher.

“Copy,” said a disembodied voice.

“See?” said Jack. “They are paying attention.”

Natalie looked down again and the wildebeest grew smaller as the aircraft rose. She was feeling good. She loved flying, she had decided, and, as she had told Christopher, one day she would learn to fly herself.

“Now turn for home,” said Jack to Christopher, “and don’t forget to announce your move in advance.”