Three Weeks in December (9781609459024) (32 page)

However, with this solution there were still the dangers of infancy in Africa, the distress of separating the child from the mother.

One night, after Sarah left his tent, he was unable to sleep. He lay perspiring on his cot, wondering what kind of man he had become, a high whine in his ears, a metallic taste in the back of his throat. At last, somewhere near dawn, he fell asleep and to his mind came a fevered dream in three short scenes. Although usually his dreams appeared in grainy black and white similar to a cartoon in a newspaper, this vision swirled through his head, as vivid and full of saturated color as a tropical garden. At times even smells wafted delicately through the scenes.

He stood in the customs building in Boston harbor, at a wood counter, his pen hovering over a form. He had just finished writing “Sarah” and was pausing to consider the empty field of the surname. He could feel the woman herself, pressing in tightly against his back, her hard huffs of fear. With one hand, he tried to ease her back to a proper remove, but in the vast marble rotunda a crowd bustled by, all sculpted clothing and clacking shoes, attended by porters and wheeled conveyances; her throat let out an almost tea-kettle whine as she wrapped herself around him. Turning to pry her off, he noted that at least she was not wearing her goatskin toga, but a blue dress with a small bustle. Still, there was her shaved scalp as well as her bare feet and calves visible beneath the dress's hem as she worked to scale him like a tree.

In the next scene he was in Africa, weeks earlier. He was trying to convey the concept of Maine as best he could. It was impossible to know what she made of his repeated words and explanatory props. The only point at which he was sure they were communicating was when her eyes lit up as he held up the cash. After this, while he continued talking, she stared at the sketch he had drawn of his family's house in Maine, running her fingers over it. His map of the continents—the ocean intervening—she barely glanced at. The calendar which he flipped through, muttering “years and years,” she was not distracted by.

In the dream's last scene, she did not appear. He was walking down Hammond Street, the day's purchases in his arms. He could hear the creak of the wood sidewalk under his heel, feel the gentle Maine sun upon his face, smell the manure of a bustling metropolis.

He became aware that across the street two people were staring at him. As he started to swivel toward the pair—Mrs. Greeley and Nathan Bartleby—he could see the way they leaned in toward each other, exchanging some confidence. He felt the familiar horror rising in his throat; they must be sharing the old gossip of his unnatural shame.

But regarding them directly now, he saw their expressions held not the disbelieving disgust he so vividly remembered. Instead the eyes of these two were wide and their mouths slack. Their expressions that of children during a ghost story, caught somewhere between horror and delight.

Even in his dream, he felt certain he would never, even in passing, have mentioned the African woman, nor her light-skinned newborn to anyone in town or in his family; he surely would not reside in the same neighborhood or district, nor have any contact with them, aside from the regular money his solicitor's agent delivered and his own occasional visits on the darkest of nights. In spite of all these precautions, there was Mrs. Greeley leaning in to whisper into Nathan's ear.

Of course the tale of the lion hunt would have changed as it moved through town; this Jeremy expected. Otombe nowhere in it, aside from perhaps as a sort of dusky shadow, the spotlight on Jeremy and his gun, his bravery unquestioned. The white hunter's character in this narrative becoming the type of person Jeremy tended to feel cowed by, steely and brave, his expression through it all stalwart and closed, similar to that of his Grandpapi.

Staring at Mrs. Greeley, he understood the story of his interaction with Sarah had also been transformed.

As Nathan leaned toward Mrs. Greeley, caught in the midst of being scandalized, Jeremy found—at least in the dream— an unusual reaction inside himself. Instead of the humiliation and self-loathing he was familiar with, he felt a trembling commencing in his gut, a vibration that grew stronger as it rose inside his torso, forcibly taking his whole body over, shaking his shoulders, rolling his head back, opening his mouth. The laughter bursting from somewhere deep and dark inside.

At the idea that—considering all that was actually true about him—the rumor of fathering any child could embarrass him.

Laughing so hard he woke himself up, the African sun high in the sky, the sound still vibrating in his throat.

For days, the dream remained with him, while he watched the coolies work, while he ate, while he lay in his bed at night.

Even now, in the tent, sucking on the piece of leather from Otombe's clothing, pumping above the body crouched before him, the dream was so powerful, not just the laugh at the end, but that first scene. The customs form in front of him. His pen hovered over the paper, the puzzle of that empty white space. That image haunted him. In some way, the surname had become magical, the key for him. If he could only figure out an appropriate name, he believed that if the pregnancy ever did occur, he could find his way through all the difficulties that would follow, be able to make choices that were not entirely distasteful.

Distracted, his actions began to lose some of their urgency. He pounded harder, with a slight sideways twist, trying to conjure up the river and Otombe wading toward him.

In a way the lion had given him so much—not what he truly wanted, but at least more than he had thought he could ever have. Its death had allowed everything to happen: being separated from Otombe had created his reaction to Sarah's visits, which led to the possibility of his someday fathering a child. Each of these results following the previous one like the cars of a train followed the engine's lead. If Sarah's womb did quicken, then years from now, when Jeremy looked back at his own life, it would appear from the point the bridge had been completed, with every additional railroad tie that was pressed into the ground, more distance had been established between him and the way in which he was different.

Perhaps he slammed into her a little hard. On her knees in front of him, she grunted a noise somewhat similar to
Oh
.

Following that first syllable, the rest of Otombe's name automatically tumbled into his mind. Of course. Without him, the child could never happen. Sarah's surname had to be some variation of that name, slightly Americanized. Tombet, Tomber.

Tombay.

The name rang out in his head, eclipsing all other sounds in the tent. Tombay.

With this name on his tongue, he felt a surge of confidence and the pleasure of his release started to shiver up his spine. He knew no matter what happened he would find an answer; the repercussions could not be as difficult as the last few years. Nothing in comparison to that, not since he had the memory of a few weeks of happiness, this scrap of leather, the returning fever.

And in this moment, his lips parting in an animal groan, he opened his eyes to see through the tent flaps the embankment of his railroad, the tracks gleaming in the moonlight, the force of the future riveted with steel and wood into this red earth, his bridge and railway which would funnel in trains and machines, colonists and attitudes, carrying in all the freight of this next century.

T
he sky was just starting to lighten. She sat on the slope by herself, at a distance from both Yoko and the gorillas, watching the sky through the morning mist. She'd been unable to sleep, needed to be alone. She sat on the cold gravel mountainside, holding the vine in her hand and thinking.

Then below her, a stone fell, clattering down the slope. The noise loud in the silence.

Staring in that direction, she saw something glitter in the fog, perhaps gold lamé. Then it was gone in the mist.

Run, she thought, run. In this fog, in her grey clothes, she might get away. Run. But rising to her feet, she glanced up at the gorillas on the peak. They were visible—so visible—large and dark against the mist.

Bushmeat.

More scree clattered down, kicked by a boot.

She found her hands rising, then waving around, her arms signaling frantically back and forth—even the dislocated one as much as it could in its sling—trying silently to warn the family of danger. The vine flapping in her hand like a flag, forgotten.

Titus jumped up at the falling stones. All the other gorillas followed, rising like a single body, looking downward. She could feel their fear inside herself, their hearts pounding inside her chest.

From the corner of her eye she could see the Kutu now, heads down, emerging from the mist. Guns and dresses, skinny limbs. They seemed to move so slowly, time ballooning outward.

She yelled up with all her strength, “Get out of here.”

The gorillas swiveled as one and began to run down the far side of the mountain. Utterly silent. Even Titus not roaring.

She was turning now, the boys standing there below her in the mist, staring at her. Above her, she heard a single rock tumble, kicked by a fleeing gorilla and she yelled again. Yelled the first thing she could think of, to cover up the noise.

“I'm American,” she screamed. “From Bangor, Maine.”

Probably the only word they understood was “American,” but they got the concept. Young boys in tattered finery.

There was a rising shrill in her ears. She could barely feel her body. Like in the moment after jumping off a too-tall diving board, she was surprised at the ease of this. She only hoped it would be fast.

The fear utterly gone. The clarity of mind returned. The freedom intense.

It was possible Yoko was using this moment too, sprinting away, low and serious. She might make it. Max couldn't spare the moment to check. For time was moving on.

The Kutu were pulling up their rifles now, yanking back on the safeties. So busy with their yelling and their jittery anger, she didn't think they'd notice what she did in this moment and so she glanced a final time after the family. Rafiki the last one, her shambling two-legged run. Asante just in front.

They disappeared. She was left alone.

Waving her hands now harder and wider, feeling the release of this movement, truly herself, flapping her arms through the air, her voice somehow rough with joy, she screamed into the morning light, “Fuckity fucking fuck.”

 

The majority of the facts in this book are as accurate as I could make them. Much of the world's coltan for cell phones does come from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Gorillas do sing.

Although the Kutu are a group I made up, the details of child soldiers, wedding dresses, drugs, and cannibalism, are based on several tribes existing in Africa today, such as the Lendu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

Finally, the United Nations Environment Programme predicts that by 2030, 90% of the remaining habitat of the gorillas, chimps, bonobo, and orangutans will be destroyed, and these species unlikely to survive in the wild.

For some of the botanical information and images in this book, I'd like to acknowledge Colonel Patterson's
Man-eaters of Tsavo
, as well as Francis Hallé's book,
In Praise of Plants
.

Aside from having been to Africa, I read over seventy books to write this novel. Some of my favorites are as follows:

 

The Railroad across British East Africa:

The Lunatic Express
, Charles Miller

Man-eaters of Tsavo
, Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson

 

Democratic Republic of Congo:

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz
, Michela Wrong

Africa in My Blood
, Jane Goodall

The River Congo
, Peter Forbath

King Leopold's Ghost
, Adam Hochschild

 

Rwanda:

The Key to My Neighbor's House
, Elizabeth Neuffer

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
, Phillip Gourevitch

Shake Hands with the Devil
, Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire

 

Lions:

Ghosts of Tsavo
, Philip Caputo

The Serengeti Lion
, George Schaller

 

Gorillas:

Gorillas Among Us
, Dawn Prince-Hughes

Gorillas in the Mist
, Dian Fossey

Woman in the Mists
, Farley Mowat

In the Kingdom of Gorillas
, Bill Weber and Amy Vedder

Year of the Gorilla
, George Schaller

The Dark Romance of Diane Fossey
, Harold Hayes

Gorilla
, George Schaller

 

Botany:

In Praise of Plants
, Francis Hallé

Life at the Limits
, David A. Wharton

Botany of Desire
, Michael Pollan

Medicinal Plants and Traditional Medicine in Africa
, Abayomi Sofowora

 

Africa:

No Mercy
, Redmond O'Hanlon

The African Slave Trade
, Basil Davidson

Travels in West Africa
, Mary Kingsley

The Zanzibar Chest
, Aidan Hartley

Famine Crimes
, Alex de Waal

Across African Sand
, Phil Deutschle

Wild Africa
, John Murray

Guns, Germs, and Steel
, Jared Diamond

Audrey Schulman is the author of three previous novels:
Swimming With Jonah
,
The Cage,
and
A House Named Brazil.
Her work has been translated into eleven languages. Born in Montreal, Schulman now lives in Massachusetts.