Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

He crushed the remains of his second cigarette into the ashtray on the table.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that, put together, what we have is of worldwide significance—hugely important. And if we announced what we have, and at the same time made public the threat to the gorge, it would put immense pressure on the authorities to do something, to rein in Marongo and the elders. Our discoveries will put Kenya on the map, culturally but also financially and therefore politically—it adds to the country’s importance, will attract tourists and scientists. The economic impact could be significant.”

Natalie nodded. “I see all that, but I don’t see what your mother and you had to fight about.”

He sat back again. “First, my mother hates the idea of a press conference because, being of the old school, she believes we must publish in the scientific literature first—in Nature or Science or Antiquity , preferably all three. Second, and even more important, she hates linking the gorge—science—with politics, she hates raising the specter of the trial in the same breath, so to speak, as the discoveries in the gorge … she thinks it’s demeaning, that it tarnishes what we do here.”

He let a pause go by.

So did Natalie. “I can see all that would make Eleanor uneasy but is that really what you fought about?”

More screaming from the baboons.

He nodded. “It got pretty heated, yes. We were both steamed up, shouting. But it didn’t boil over until I said—in the middle of her resistance—that it was a pity our father wasn’t still around, that Jock would have instinctively understood what was needed now—”

“Oh, Jack—!”

He raised his hand. “It’s true enough. Dad would have reveled in this situation. He knew Kenyatta in the old days, argued with him, shouted at him, and Kenyatta shouted back, but there was a respect there, a mutual respect. Dad would have known that the solution to this crisis doesn’t lie in secret deals or negotiations with Marongo and the Maasai. It’s really about what kind of country Kenya wants to be—a tribal backwater or a modern scientific center.”

Jack was hunched forward over the table again. He lowered his voice. “You know, I think the real reason she didn’t come to dinner is that she wanted to calm down, to think about what I had said, before she heard what the rest of you had to say. She’s jealous of her authority, as you know, but she also knows she has to give way soon—to me and/or Christopher. She just didn’t count on me having this particular idea, now. She’s not happy with it, and she knows that a lot of publicity, much of it hostile, goes with the territory, but she also knows—deep down—that it could be a way out, a way forward.”

Another long silence, save for the baboons, among whom something disagreeable was clearly taking place.

“What do you think?” He leaned forward.

Natalie rubbed her eyes. The vapors given off by the hurricane lamp were stinging them.

“I can understand your mother’s objections. The scientific journals don’t like it if you go public first. But… yes, I agree, it may be a solution.”

In fact, her heart had been lifted by what Jack said, in a way that it hadn’t been lifted in weeks. “What gave you the idea?”

“Well, in a way, you did.” He put his hand on hers again.

“What do you mean? How?”

“When we were in the crater, you said you had talked with my mother about father’s womanizing. You also talked about failure, being in your twenties and failing and coming back from failure.” He rubbed the scar over his eye. “Well, you couldn’t know it, but father would never accept failure. The battles he fought, in the early years of the dig, were amazing, and half the time he fought those battles in public, in the media, manipulating them where he could, cajoling where he could, and—I feel sure, though I don’t know for certain—exaggerating here, fibbing a bit there, being creatively ambiguous somewhere else. All to get his own way, to recover from setbacks.”

He smiled ruefully.

“Thinking about my father, and how different he was from my mother, what a showman he was, I suddenly saw that he would have responded to our predicament over the trial in a very different way—and in no time the solution came to me. That’s another thing my mother finds hard to swallow, that I’ve inherited something of my father and that maybe, just maybe, his genes could rescue us.”

Natalie was still longing for another cigarette but, for the moment, held off. “Say you do hold a press conference along the lines you suggest—”

He nodded.

“Wouldn’t it provoke the Maasai? Maybe they would move on the gorge before the trial. All those warriors are just waiting …”

He shook his head. “That would show them to be savages. Marongo wouldn’t want that. His political power will come, if it does come, from showing that their customs are as evolved and as dignified as ours. Don’t worry about that.”

He smiled. “Worry about this instead.” He lifted Natalie’s hands and bent his head to kiss them.

For a moment, Natalie allowed her hands to be kissed. But she said nothing and then she slowly disengaged her hands from his. “I feel a whole lot better than I did half an hour ago. I realize there’s a long way to go and that your mother may take some convincing, but your idea has lifted a load from my mind.”

She was impressed, too. Impressed that he had used his interest in—and knowledge of—politics, to come up with a solution. What might be a solution.

He looked at her, a half smile along his mouth. Slowly, he reached up and touched the ball of his thumb to her lips, and then to his own lips.

“I said I wouldn’t stay long, but I have. Forgive me.” He got to his feet and picked up his pack of cigarettes. “But,” he whispered, “I’ll be back.”

“Found any more obsidian, Kees?” It was the end of the next morning’s digging and Natalie was stowing her kit into the Land Rover as Kees approached. They had been working near each other and would drive back together to the camp.

“No. Why are you so interested?”

“You know Mgina? That pretty girl who cleans our tents, who brings the hot shower water?”

Kees nodded.

“She’s getting married soon. I wondered if obsidian would make an ideal wedding gift—it’s local and she could maybe have it turned into jewelry.”

“Nice idea,” said Kees, “but I’m afraid I’ve not come across any more.” He threw some of his things onto the backseat of the Land Rover.

“You know,” she said, opening the driver’s door, “some anthropologists think that obsidian made the first mirrors and they speculate that that’s why obsidian was so valued in ancient times—it was felt to have mystical powers, throwing back images of people as if from another world.”

Kees frowned. “Wouldn’t ancient man have seen his reflection in water—in rivers and lakes?”

She nodded. “Rivers and lakes were worshipped, too, for all sorts of reasons, of course, because life depended on them, but I can quite see that reflections could have been very mysterious to early mankind.”

“When is this wedding?”

“I don’t know, in a few weeks I expect.” They both climbed into the Land Rover, with Natalie in the driving seat. Before she could switch on, Kees said, “I’ll keep looking and let you know if I find anything. By the way, I very much admire the stand you are taking over Mutevu.”

Natalie looked at him. “I didn’t think you were on my side.”

He shook his head. “I’m not. I just mean to say that I admire and sympathize with your inner strength, your steel. I wish I had it.”