Someone Wishes to Speak to You (38 page)

They talked again about when the best time would be for Jan to file for a divorce, although they both recognised that at the present stage of the Bush War, with the regular news of some of the Selous Scouts’ and Major Bushney’s successful operations against the insurgents, the break-up would have to be delayed. So they both agreed that until the Bush War came to an end, and a constitutional settlement was arrived at, they would have to continue with a clandestine relationship. While politicians both in and outside the country had been trying to find a satisfactory settlement, the Selous Scouts, with their military associates the SAS and the RLI, were still very much involved with counter-insurgency operations. As Major Bushney was currently one of the country’s heroes, they both realised an announcement that Jan had started divorce proceedings against him would appear highly counterproductive, perhaps even unpatriotic.

On 31 December 1977, Mathew listened to Ian Smith’s
New Year message with Addie and Miles Kinloch, in which he highlighted that, ‘The British have been trying to settle the Rhodesian problems in a manner which would best settle their own interests, rather than the interests of Rhodesia.’ He had gone on to report that whereas the rest of the world was pursuing a settlement between Nkomo’s ZAPU and Mugabe’s ZANU/PF, his RF Government were currently negotiating to establish an ‘internal settlement’, with him becoming joint prime minister with Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Rev. Ndabaningi Sithole and Senator Chief Chirau, in order for Rhodesia to establish a fifty-fifty black/white transitional government, which he hoped would be fully recognised by the international community. Smith had ended his broadcast by saying, ‘Let us hope that with 1978 a new era is about to begin. With goodwill, understanding and courage, we should grasp the opportunities open to us to end our dispute, to the benefit of all of our people.’

The spring term at the university started off well with a good deal of optimism among the students about the country’s future. In early February, the Willocks held a small farewell dinner at their residence, which Mathew attended with Michael and Denise Lamb, and Addie. The Lambs were to follow the Willocks back to the UK after a short handover period to the newly arrived staff at the British Consulate. Addie, as expected, was given a month’s notice, but Simon Vaughan-Jones managed to find her a job at his Victoria Museum. On 4 March, the fifty-fifty black/white transitional government was sworn in, but this ‘internal settlement’ was not recognised by the outside world.

In April 1978, ZANLA insurgents killed Lord Richard Cecil, who had been working on a documentary about the Bush War, after he parachuted with the RAR into northeast Rhodesia. Lord Cecil’s ancestor had been a notable builder of the British
Empire and Cecil Square in Salisbury had been named after him. Acts of terrorism having increased, including the fatal shootings of two women in their sixties in the dining room of Inyanga’s Montclair Hotel; a thirteen-year-old boy being killed as his sixteen-year-old brother fought off a gang of terrorists at their family home in Glendale; and a horrific atrocity on 23 June when eight English missionaries and four children were slaughtered at the Elim Mission, in an isolated mountainous region in the Eastern Highlands. The killers were reported to have dragged black students from their beds and harangued them for paying school fees to a ‘racist government’, while the whites were removed and butchered elsewhere.

In August, it was reported in the
Rhodesia Mail
that President Samora Machel had admitted holding 20,000 religious dissenters in camps in Mozambique but refused to bow to pressure for their release. On the 29 August, a Viscount carrying fifty-eight passengers was shot down by ZIPRA insurgents with a SAM-7 missile, only a few minutes into its flight from Kariba to Salisbury. After the plane had crash-landed in the Zambezi Escarpment, twelve ZIPRA insurgents arrived at the scene and shot and bayoneted the majority of the survivors, with their commander being reported to have shouted, ‘You have stolen our land, you are white, now you must die.’ As the country mourned this major atrocity, another mortar and rocket attack was carried out by ZANLA operatives on Umtali. In view of the numerous terrorist attacks that were taking place, Mathew came to the conclusion that neither of the African political parties ZANU/PF or ZAPU would ever recognise the overall authority of the RF’s recently established Interim Government.

Soon after Lucienne had joined her husband, Daniel Olingo, at the US Embassy in Lusaka, she wrote to Mathew in the hope that they could arrange to see each other again. They
soon arranged to meet at the end of September at the Royal Livingstone Hotel in Zambia, where she would stay with her two children. On the day before their meeting, Mathew flew up to Victoria Falls from Salisbury, via Kariba, and booked in for two nights at the famous Victoria Falls Hotel, sometimes referred to as the ‘Gleneagles of Africa’.

As a British citizen and holder of a British passport it had been comparatively easy for him to acquire a day tourist visa to enter Zambia, whereas Lucienne and her children were refused entry into Rhodesia and due to the country’s racist policies, would not be allowed in his hotel.

Mathew had been interested to read that in 1855, Dr David Livingstone, the missionary, physician and explorer, was the first European to witness the magnificence of Victoria Falls, which he then named after his sovereign. The natives had called the dramatic phenomenon ‘the smoke that thunders’, whereas Livingstone had written in his diary ‘. . . seems so lovely, must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight’.

As the drive down to Livingstone from Lusaka was expected to take Lucienne in the region of six and a half hours, her chauffeur-driven embassy car was not expected to arrive at the hotel much before 2 p.m. For this reason, after Mathew had eaten an early breakfast he took the opportunity to walk down to the Devil’s Cataract, on the western side of the falls. Here, he saw the bronze statue of Dr Livingstone gazing over the savage splendour of the cataract to the magnificence of the main falls, as they crashed down roughly a hundred metres into the roaring cauldron beneath. He walked along a network of paths running parallel to the falls that, at intervals, led to vantage points at the edge of the gorge. In the majority of cases, there were no safety barriers to prevent a slip into the abyss beneath. During his walk to the famous railway bridge that spanned the ravine, linking Southern Rhodesia with Zambia, he encountered small family groups of warthogs, vervet monkeys, chacma baboons and various species of
butterflies, which all appeared to be enjoying the coolness of the fine spray. The unspoilt tropical environment greatly helped Mathew to become as relaxed as possible before his reunion with Lucienne; but he still could not help thinking of their dramatic and tearful parting five years previously in Atlanta.

Mathew was interested to see a plaque at the side of the pedestrian pathway which recorded that the bridge had taken fourteen months to construct in 1905 and that it was the brainchild of Cecil Rhodes, a part of his dream for a Cape to Cairo railway. The plaque also stated that this outstanding example of Victorian manufacturing had been forged in England by the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company and, in 1904, was shipped to Beira, then transported on the newly constructed railway to Salisbury, via Bulawayo, to Victoria Falls. Rhodes was reported to have instructed the engineers ‘to build the bridge across the Zambezi where the trains, as they pass, will catch the spray of the falls’.

Mathew passed through both the heavily fortified border posts without any undue delay, although the weapons loosely carried by the Zambian soldiers had looked particularly threatening. However, after having found a friendly taxi driver to take him to the hotel where he was to meet Lucienne and her two children, the driver soon dispelled any feelings of hostility and apprehension that he may have had by telling him how very much he welcomed him as a tourist to his country, especially during such troubled times.

On the previous evening Mathew had read how in 1911, the British South Africa Company had made the township of Livingstone the capital of the new British colony of Northern Rhodesia. He could see how much Cecil Rhodes’ realisation of his dream of a Cape to Cairo railway had made this part of southern central Africa, what the European explorers had initially referred to as ‘Darkest Africa’, accessible and open to trade with the outside world.

On arrival at the Royal Livingstone Hotel, Mathew tipped
the driver with an over-generous amount of US $ notes, and asked him to return to the hotel by 5 p.m. He had only been able to obtain a one-day visa to Zambia and had to be back at the border crossing half an hour before sunset, prior to the border being closed for the night.

Lucienne arranged for their meeting to take place at a time when Daniel had to return to Washington DC to report to his superiors at the African Section of the States Department, on the increase of the cross-border raids by Rhodesia’s security forces into Zambia. Such territorial incursions had greatly increased as a result of ZIPRA’s downing of the Viscount in the Zambezi Escarpment, in which 38 were killed in the crash and ten survivors were subsequently massacred.

Apparently Daniel was delighted that while he was in Washington, she was taking the opportunity to visit the falls with their two children and to meet up with one of her old Emory University friends. It was very much due to his pressure of work at the embassy that he had been unable to take his family to see Victoria Falls, acknowledged to be one of the ‘Wonders of the World’.

Mathew arrived at the Royal Livingstone just after midday, with plenty of time to spare before Lucienne was due to arrive, and chose a table in a corner of the shaded veranda with a good view of the drive leading up to the main entrance. After ordering a pint of Castle lager and a light snack, he couldn’t help reflecting on some of the traumatic times he had experienced during his last few weeks with Lucienne in Atlanta. He had never been able to rid himself of his feeling of guilt after having abandoned her to undergo an abortion in San Diego. Also, for the thousandth time, he tried to reconcile why they had both separately come to accept that due to their very different ethnic and social backgrounds, their intimate relationship could never have developed into a marriage that would be sustainable in the long term.

Almost on the dot of 2 p.m. Mathew saw a smart, black
limousine come slowly down the drive and park under the shaded portals of the hotel’s entrance. A uniformed African chauffeur and a plain-clothed US Embassy security man were sitting in the front. As soon as the car stopped, the security man got out and opened the rear door, out of which stepped Lucienne holding the hands of her two excitable young children. Mathew had asked the reception to direct an American lady with her two children as soon as they had arrived to where he would be waiting for them on the veranda. Lucienne was wearing an elegant navy and white outfit, and as they walked towards each other, he recognised her customary broad smile and eyes that appeared to shine like treasured jewels.

‘Mathew – you don’t look a day older! So good to see you again,’ said Lucienne as she gave Mathew a friendly but reserved embrace. ‘These are my children, Marcus and Polly.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Marcus and Polly,’ said Mathew, smiling at the confident-looking and handsome young boy and the coy but most attractive little girl who stood on either side of their mother.

As they exchanged mutual enthusiasms and Mathew ordered some iced lime juice for them all, Lucienne’s face radiated happiness. ‘Children, this is the gentleman I told you about who spends most of his time looking at monkeys. We’ve seen baboons and vervet monkeys crossing the road on our journey down from Lusaka, haven’t we? Lots of them!’

‘My daddy is a very important man, who works in the US Embassy in Lusaka, in Africa,’ said Marcus, unprompted, causing Mathew and Lucienne to laugh at this fine appraisal of his father. ‘I’m sure he is, young man,’ replied Mathew. ‘That sounds very much more important than looking at monkeys, if not as much fun.’

‘I promised Daniel we would only travel during daylight hours, so I’ve booked into the hotel for the night. I suppose you need to return to Rhodesia by sunset?’

‘I do – how about to make the most of our time, we walk
to the banks of the Zambezi? I’ve been reading up on Victoria Falls so I can share the benefit of my wisdom with the children. We may even see some animals on the way.’

‘Yes, let’s do that. I must warn you that the armed security man has strict instructions to keep us in his sight at all times. It’s not as bad as it sounds, we’re quite used to it. He won’t be intrusive.’

During their walk along an earthen path toward the Zambezi, under the shade of groups of acacia trees, they could hear the massive roar of the waterfall and see the clouds of spray erupting from the top of the eastern cataract and far beyond. When talking to each other, Mathew and Lucienne were careful not to say anything that could be misconstrued as something other than memories of university life, should it be picked up by either of the children and subsequently repeated to their father. Although when they talked about Adrien Deschryver and the eastern lowland gorillas of Kahuzi-Biega, and their mutual friendships with Osman and Yvonne Hill, they managed to convey a great deal to each other through their eyes. At one stage Mathew saw Lucienne become tearful but she quickly wiped them away, telling her children that she sometimes had an allergy to some of the local vegetation.

When they reached the eastern bank of the Zambezi, just above the waterfall’s eastern cataract, Lucienne was surprised by the way Marcus quickly released her hand and took Mathew’s, as if wishing for his protection from the thunderous noise of the water as it plunged over the rapids into the cauldron below. While Polly hid behind her mother in awe of what was in front of her, Lucienne could see how tightly Marcus held Mathew’s hand as he had gazed at the magnificence of the spectacle. Marcus’ contact with her former lover almost appeared to represent the start of a natural bonding between son and father.