Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

There was a brief gloomy silence, until she suddenly turned in her seat. “Mutevu, what’s the matter? There’s something different about you tonight—I can’t put my finger on it?”

He held his massive frame erect but grinned sheepishly. “Some monkeys got into the camp, ma’am. They stole one of my boots—”

“That’s it!” cried Eleanor. “Of course! You’re not shuffling.” She peered round the edge of the table and inspected his footwear. “So your beloved Wellingtons have gone missing, eh? You’re reduced to plimsolls, I see.”

“Just one boot was taken, Miss Eleanor.”

“We can fix that, I’m sure. Don’t worry. I’ll have Jack buy some in Nairobi.” She smiled.

“Thank you, Miss Eleanor, but the old ones were a gift from Sir Philip Sisley. He signed them. Don’t bother Mr. Jack, he’s busy, I’m sure.”

And Mutevu was gone.

Eleanor smiled as he left the room. “I should have guessed the boots had sentimental value … because they don’t fit.” Her grin took in the whole table. “Now, where was I? Yes, well done, Natalie, that was quick thinking, about the anthrax, I mean. But if this episode looks like it has a happy ending, we can get back to—”

“Yes, yes, this paper on the knee joint needn’t be very long, isn’t that so?” interrupted Richard Sutton somewhat awkwardly. “And if you insist we need modern bones for a comparison, maybe I should go to Nairobi, or New York, find some bones, in a hospital or a morgue, and then come back.” He swigged his Coke from the bottle.

“Don’t be silly, Richard.” Eleanor pushed her shirt more firmly into the top of her gabardine skirt. “No one wastes digging time like that. Just because you’ve made one discovery doesn’t mean you, or Russell here, or Christopher, or any of us, will not find something even more important in the days ahead.” She took off her spectacles and waved them at him. “Don’t be so impatient. No one’s going to ‘scoop’ you on a thing like this.”

“How can you be so sure?” Sutton banged his Coke bottle down on the table. “This is a big breakthrough, Eleanor. Front-page news. The biggest coup of my career, and of Russell’s. Daniel’s greatest find. And it won’t do your reputation any harm, either. The Deacon legend will be glossier than ever. We should move fast. I feel it in my bones.” He looked around the table, from one face to another, daring them to disagree.

Natalie met his gaze.

He looked away first.

Eleanor, who had been chewing one of the stems of her spectacles, enfolded them in her hand. “Richard, please. Please . I have been excavating in Africa for nearly forty years, and running digs for much of that time. They are collective affairs, as you well know. Now, I agree that Daniel, and Russell, and you have made an important discovery. Front-page news, as you put it. Or so we think. But what if Natalie here is right, and a comparison with modern bones does not support your theory? If you go rushing off to Nairobi, or New York, or somewhere else, you’ll have wasted days of valuable digging time, time that I have organized, raised money for, negotiated permissions for, with the government and the local tribes. That’s not been easy.”

She leaned back as Mutevu Ndekei reappeared to remove the plates.

“I won’t have it, Richard. No one is standing in the way of publication, or censoring what you have discovered. For pity’s sake, I, we, are just asking you to see sense, make a simple comparison first, and delay for a few weeks. It is perfectly normal behavior that happens all the time.” She reached up and removed the bandana from her head, folded it neatly, and laid it on the table next to her napkin. “And you are surely overlooking the fact that, if we have found a tibia and femur in this part of the gorge, there is an excellent chance that we will find some other pieces of the same skeleton, perhaps even a skull. That would be even more momentous than what we have already.”

Richard went to say something but she waved him down, slapping the table with the open palm of her hand and rattling the cutlery.

“You force me to say this, Richard, by your … your refusal to back off, see sense, acknowledge that you are part of a team … But if you leave now, I’m warning you—officially warning you—that you can’t come back.” She took a deep breath. “We have achieved what we have on our digs by discipline. Not by being authoritarian—I’m not an ogre, as you well know—but by having a few rules, for the benefit of all, and sticking to them.”

She swallowed some water. No one else around the table was about to say anything. Most of them kept their eyes fixed firmly in front of them.

“Now look,” she went on, more amenably, “let’s not argue. I want this paper to be published as quickly as possible, just like you do. But I have other responsibilities and you, in my view, are being unreasonable.”

Richard said nothing. But only with great difficulty.

“Is there anything else like this in the world?” Natalie asked. “It’s extraordinary.” She held her camera to her eye and took more photographs.

“I don’t know if it’s unique,” replied Christopher, “but it’s certainly very unusual. You can see why the local Maasai, who are theoretically Christians, still worship these sands.”

Natalie, Christopher, and Kees van Schelde were standing in front of a small sand dune on the Serengeti plain, about eight miles or so from the camp. It was not far off dusk and Christopher had brought them here to show them one of the “local sights,” as he put it, Natalie and Kees being the two newest members of the dig.

Kees was also taking photographs. “Explain it to me again, will you? I’m still not sure I understand completely.” Kees was the youngest of the team, a twenty-five-year-old Dutchman from the University of Amsterdam who had yet to complete his Ph.D., but he had already been on several digs, making him considerably more experienced than Natalie, if less qualified, formally speaking.

“Sure,” said Christopher. He leaned against the bonnet of the Land Rover. “This being a flat plain, the winds can be quite strong, with very little to impede them. Notice that the edge of the dune that is facing the wind is fairly steep, whereas the trailing edge—on the lee side if you like—is quite shallow. When the wind blows, what happens is that grains of sand on the leading edge, the steep edge, are blown up into the air, and then fall and settle on the trailing edge. When the wind is very strong, like it is now, that process is magnified, it happens much more quickly, with the result that, over a matter of days, the entire sand dune can move, maybe as much as five feet a day. Over the months, the dune can move miles—and then, when the wind changes, move back again. Because it moves so much, the local Maasai think the dune is mysteriously alive, which is why they worship it.”

He slid into the driving seat of the Land Rover, the others finished taking their photos, and then Natalie got in alongside him and Kees climbed in the back.

The light was fading fast as they headed home. They looked about them, as the animals began to appear.

“Have you ever been to Italy?” Kees asked.

Christopher shook his head.

“No,” said Natalie. “I’d love to go, but why do you ask?”

“They have this thing called a passeggiato when, in the early evening, everyone walks up and down the main street of town, looking at everyone else, who they are with, what they are wearing … it’s just like that here in the bush. The animals come out and are on a sort of parade.”

“Hmm,” growled Christopher. “With one big difference. Here, one half of the animals are trying to eat the other half.”