Authors: Anthony Bidulka
Wellness into agreeing to stop bumping bellies with me or anyone else ever again, then take us back.
Nowhere in his plan was there a harried escape down the convoluted waterways of Africa. We all knew what a hard time Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn had had of it, and none of us was in the mood to try it for ourselves.
When we arrived at the shore, with barely a word shared between us during the return trip, the sun was just poking its cheery head above a gloomy horizon congested with a melancholy blue haze. The air was chill and oddly flavoured with the scent of stale mud, hickory fire and fresh coffee. The fine folks at Chobe were oblivious to the adventure in terror carried out not far from their safe bedroom suites. Back on dry, hard earth, we unanimously agreed that we did not feel safe remaining at Chobe. Obviously the gunmen-whoever they were-knew it as a place where we might be found should they want to make good on their marksmanship. We were fortunate enough to land the scow without a greeting from an unwelcome landing party with guns, but it would be plain stupidity to press our luck by hanging around.
With no other obvious choice, the three of us made the trek back to the village where Cassandra and I had planned to spend the night in the first place. As far as we knew, only Jaegar had successfully tracked us there.
“So that wasn’t you in the black truck that pulled up behind the burning Jeep?” I asked as we trudged along the uneven path, having gotten far enough away from Chobe to conclude we weren’t being followed and could risk making some noise other than the sound of our feet.
“No,” Jaegar answered. “I have no truck when I cross the water.”
That jibed with his earlier story that he was working for Cassandra’s husband. He’d turned up at Livingstone airport because he was following Cassandra, not me; he’d lost my trail in Mashatu; there had been no collusion with Richard Cassoum, the camp manager. That being true, Jaegar couldn’t have known where we were going, and to have a truck on the other side of the river after we left Zambia would have meant he wasn’t working alone-or was a very convincing and speedy negotiator, which I doubted. He’d made it across the river on the speedboat, but then what? “So how did you find Cassandra in the village?”
“I run. I get off the boat and I run. This was my only chance to catch you.”
I grunted. His chances were darn good, I thought to myself, given the lightning speed (not) at which the vehicles around this place seem to travel.
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“I run to where the Jeep burns,” Jaegar recounted his chase. “I saw you in bushes. Hiding. I was in bushes too.”
Of course. He hadn’t been in the mean-looking SUV that pulled up just after our Jeep exploded, but rather far enough behind and in the perfect position to witness our escape. We’d been too focused on trying to avoid being seen by whoever was in the black-hearted truck to notice him.
“Why Sal Island?” I questioned, now that he was in a talkative mood. “And why follow me to Mashatu when Cassandra wasn’t even with me?”
“I start by following Mrs. Wellness. Until I learn about you. Then I chase you.”
“But why me?”
“You were together on plane. You were together in Cape Town.
You were the one. The lover. It was you Mr. Wellness wanted me to scare off. So I chase you.”
Jaegar was better at his job than I gave him credit for. Had he found some way to see into my room?
Did he catch me with my hands and mouth where they shouldn’t have been on that drunken night at the Table Bay Hotel? Or was he bluffing? I didn’t think I’d ever learn the answer to that one. “That still doesn’t explain why you got on the plane at Sal Island. If you were hired by Cassandra’s husband, I assume you live in Atlanta, right? And I didn’t even know Cassandra yet. You couldn’t have suspected me yet.”
“I take a different flight from Atlanta. I then wait for Mrs. Wellness’s plane in Sal. I get on at Sal to avoid as much as possible being seen by her until I find out about the man she is meeting with. But I didn’t have to wait until she get to Africa. You were already sitting with her on the plane.”
That was true. It was all innocent, but I could see how he could make the mistake…well, sort of mistake.
“Would you two twerps stop talking about me as if I’m not here?” Cassandra piped up with a flip of her hair, her voice dripping with molten lava. “Or better yet, stop talking altogether. I’m sick of discussing this. Let’s just get back to the room and get some sleep. I am so bloody tired, I’m about to drop on the spot and use one of you for a pillow. If I hear one more peep out of either of you, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!”
The rest of the trip was spent in quiet contemplation. For some reason I was still carrying both my luggage and Cassandra’s.
We spent what was left of the night (or rather, early morning) in our messed up little hovel. Cassandra was no longer in the frame of mind for sharing the bed (which was too small for all three of us anyway), leaving Jaegar and me to snuggle up on the floor at her feet (which I think she took perverse pleasure in).
Later that morning, with little protest, for she knew the jig was up and it was time to face the music, Cassandra agreed to accompany Jaegar back to Livingstone, and eventually home to Atlanta.
We were at the Kasane jetty when she hugged me goodbye for the last time.
“The only part of marriage I enjoy,” she whispered into my ear as we embraced, “is escaping it.”
I pulled back and looked at her in dismay.
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adventure for the simple life.”
Cassandra stepped away and allowed Jaegar to help her into the waiting speedboat. As the sputtering craft began its short voyage across the Zambezi, neither passenger looked back. I felt a murmur of sadness run through me as I watched her being taken away. Cassandra Wellness was a wild animal of Africa, captured and being returned to the cage of domesticated marriage.
Good luck with that.
I returned to the village to collect my things and tidy up the small room as best I could. I was preparing to head out when Masha came in with a bowl of fresh, sliced fruit for my breakfast. Where she got fresh fruit in the middle of that arid land, I do not know, but I ate it ravenously and with gratitude.
With renewed energy and hope for a successful day, I set out with my bags in hand and once again made the by now all-too-familiar trip back to Chobe. I had unfinished business there.
When I entered the front lobby of the main lodge building, it was busier than before, but not by much; mostly scurrying employees doing whatever scurrying employees do. Most of the guests had either gone off on morning game drives or water safaris or were lazing over a leisurely, late breakfast in the dining room.
I headed directly up the set of stairs that I knew would take me to the second level where Matthew Moxley’s boyfriend worked as a masseur. The dismal break-of-day sky to which we’d awakened on the boat, seemingly forever ago, had disappeared. It was a warm, cloudless day and sunshine filled the hallway that led to Kevan’s work area. A pleasing scent of jasmine, lavender and something spicy mixed together beckoned me to the room, and I could just make out the pleasant tinkling of spa-muzak as I padded toward the open doorway of the massage room.
I stepped into a small, square room that acted as a waiting area. Empty. A door to my right was partially open and I laid a hand against it to push it inwards. This room was also empty. But I was definitely in the right place, and quite a lovely place it was. In the middle of the room, surrounded by the tools of a masseur’s trade-luxurious white towels, sparkling stainless steel receptacles of various sizes for various purposes, bottles and jars of creams and lotions and oils, tissues and cotton batting and pillows and other soft things-was a massage table. Beyond the table, a set of double doors, open to an outdoor balcony brimming with potted plants and a bistro table with two chairs, invited one to sit down for a chilled glass of iced tea or lemonade. A playful breeze floated through the room, promising a hint of coolness in the typically hot climate. It was a charming, pleasant place to spend one’s work day.
“Hello. Can I help you? Would you like to make an appointment?” The voice was soft and low and, like the breeze, contained a hint of coolness.
I turned to face a man who’d just come through the doorway. He was holding a cup of steaming tea in one hand and a plate of crusty lumps of dough in the other. He was a unique looking man with a long, narrow face that would have appeared feminine were it not for the strong angles of his cheekbones and flared jaw line and a generous nose and forehead. His head was shaved and by the strain of the white polo shirt across his chest and arms I could tell he was an athlete, or at least someone who paid close attention to his physical fitness. His skin darkened to near black around hooded eyes, giving him a look of mystery, offset by the warm curve of a smile which was, at the moment, only tentative as he regarded me.
“Are you Kevan?” I asked, although I was almost certain of the answer.
He nodded, suspicion washing over his face. “I am. Kevan Badanga. And you are?”
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“I am Russell Quant.”
Kevan’s eyes moved away from me momentarily as he looked for a place to set down his tea and biscuits. When that was done he wiped his hands against each other as if preparing to use them for…?
“I’m a…”
He cut me off. “I know who you are.”
I cocked my head to the side as if it might help to figure that one out. A trick I’d learned from Barbra.
“You were in Khayelitsha,” he said in explanation. “Looking for Matt.”
Surprise spread over my face. And just how did he know that? I was finding out that in Africa, news travels faster than Jeeps. This certainly made things a bit easier if I didn’t have to explain myself to him.
“That’s right. Do you know where he is?”
“You must be joking,” Kevan said, a slight snarl curling his upper lip.
This man did not like me, and he was not trying to conceal it. “I don’t understand.”
“After what you did in Khayelitsha, you expect me to help you?” he said, his voice incredulous.
“I’m sorry, Kevan,” I said, truly dumfounded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I went to Khayelitsha looking for Matt, your boyfriend. They told me he was working in Tuli Block, so here I am.”
“You cleverly omitted telling them
why
you are looking for Matt,” he said accusingly. “You must want to see him pretty badly, to do what you did.”
I frowned. “To do what I did? All I did was ask a few questions.”
“Is it your intention to do the same today?” he spit out at me. I saw his mighty arm muscles flex. “Are you going to ask me a few questions?” He said it as if the words were a euphemism for something completely different. “I warn you; I will not be as helpless a victim.”
I held up both hands in a defensive gesture. “Wait, wait, wait, Kevan, I think you have the wrong guy here. Just what is it you think happened in Khayelitsha?”
Kevan let out a humourless snort of laughter. “You did the same thing there. Pretending to be innocent.
Well, let me tell you, I am not believing it.”
“Believing what?” This guy was talking circles around me, and I was getting dizzy trying to figure out what was going on.
“You left the Chikosi house as if it were over,” he said. “But then you came back, later, without your Afrikaner guide. And then you tried to beat the information you wanted out of them.”
I stood staring at him, for the moment stunned into silence.
“Why did you do it?” he demanded to know. “They’d told you everything they knew. They had nothing left to tell you. The Chikosis are good people, kind people, yet you tortured them to get information they did not have.”
My brain was whirring with this new information. Who could have done this? Jaegar? But why?
Cassandra had been with me that night in Khayelitsha; there was no reason for him to attack the people whose home we visited. What about Joseph, our guide? That made even less sense. No, this was someone else. Something about this felt…hauntingly familiar.
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I put a hand against the well-padded massage table to steady myself. “The Chikosis…are they…all right?”
Kevan’s eyes grew narrow as he weighed the motive for my question. Was it concern? Was I being sincere? Was it possible that I was not responsible for what happened to these people? Or was I trying to trick him? He began slowly, “Piksteel, he was badly beaten.” He registered the upset on my face and continued. “Thandile, less so. Her injuries were mostly due to her own attack on the man, as she attempted to protect her husband. Piksteel will lose an eye, but he will live.”
I winced at the words. My God. The man would lose an eye. Had I done this? Had I somehow led this brutality and violence into the home of these innocent people? Of course I had not physically carried out the appalling deed, but if this was somehow related to my case, related to the fact that I had been in the Chikosi’s home, then I did bear some responsibility.
“Your face,” Kevan commented, stepping closer and staring at me.
I stared back, saying nothing.
“There are no scratches.”
I shook my head, not sure what he was getting at.
“Walk,” he said simply.
Another head shake, not understanding.
“Walk,” he repeated.
I did as he asked, taking a stroll to the balcony doors then back to my original spot.
He released a frustrated huff of air. The features of his unusual face were drawn into those of someone trying to fit a round peg into a square hole, and knowing it was futile.
“Again.”
I complied, feeling a little like a circus animal.
“You do not walk with a limp,” he noted, intently assessing my legs.
My heart began to race as an ugly, rotting déjà vu invaded my insides like a fast spreading disease.