Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (13 page)

“Had his chance,” said Cyrus. “Muffed it.”

“But they must have heard you,” protested Mrs. Pollifax, “and if they were deaf they would have seen me waving, because they turned and looked.”

Approaching the Lufupa workers Cyrus said, “From the city, were they?”

“Oh yes, sir,” the elder said, beaming. “They did not know the camp is closed. Three gentlemen from Lusaka.”

“Didn’t they wonder what we’re doing here?”

“Oh yes, missis. I told them you are all from Kafwala camp, on organized safari.”

Odd, thought Mrs. Pollifax, frowning, very odd, and could not quite shrug off the sensation that if Cyrus was accurate, then forces were in motion that she did not understand. Turning to him she said stubbornly, “I don’t—I really don’t—see how on earth you can be so certain it was the same man.”

“Could be wrong,” he said fairly.

She looked at him quickly. “Are you often wrong?”

“No. Study too many faces in court. Habit of mine.”

She nodded. Nevertheless he’d admitted that he could be wrong and she clung to this, because otherwise she was left with the uneasy mystery of a man who wanted to see her in Lusaka and then, catching up with her, jumped into a car to avoid being seen.

Some hours later Mrs. Pollifax, happily showering back at camp, was tempted to break into song again. Life in the bush, she thought, certainly stripped one of inconsequentials: she had been hot and dusty for hours and now the cold water splashing over her heated skin brought a delightful tingly sensation. She had been out-of-doors since dawn, and soon there would be a feast around the campfire for which she already had a ravenous appetite. She wondered when she had felt so free … perhaps never … and running through her mind like a melody were little vignettes of the road at midday: the hot sun, dust, the orange trunk of a thorn tree as well as another tree they’d seen bearing long torpedo-shaped gray fruit that Julian had called a sausage tree. She had also learned
to say thank you in Nyanga—
zikomo kuambeia
—and at Lufupa …

But it was better not to think of Lufupa, she reminded herself. The memory of it raised disturbing questions because they set in motion doubts that eventually, no matter how she reasoned them away, returned full circle to Cyrus. It was Cyrus, after all, who had told her that a man had asked for her at the hotel after she had left, and it was Cyrus who insisted now that it was this same man they’d seen at Lufupa camp, but she had only his word for there being such a man at all. What was she to make of it? If Cyrus was Aristotle … she shivered at this demonic thought and turned off the water and reached for a towel. But if Cyrus was Aristotle, it didn’t make sense his manufacturing a Mr. X who was looking for her, and if he had
not
fabricated this stranger—if there really was such a man …

“There you are!” said a man’s voice suddenly, and Mrs. Pollifax jumped.

Outside the shower hut Lisa’s voice replied. “Hello, John, I was just looking for a sunny spot to dry my hair.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Oh—around.” Lisa’s voice was vague. “Mrs. Pollifax was waiting to take a shower when I came out but she’s gone now. Dad and Chanda are over at the kitchen watching the chef start dinner on that funny stove they have here. Mr. Kleiber pricked a finger and Tom is assuring him that he’s not going to get a rare African disease. McIntosh is napping and—”

“Enough, enough!” he said with mock despair. “What I really came to ask you is why you’ve been avoiding me since lunch. It made me wonder. Look here, was it a
shock to you when I said I’d been married once, very briefly, years ago?”

“A shock? Good heavens, no, John!”

“What
did
you think?”

Mrs. Pollifax, torn between announcing herself and listening, opted for the latter and continued dressing.

“I thought,” Lisa was saying slowly, “if I remember correctly, that I wasn’t surprised it lasted only six months. I thought you must be a rather difficult person to be married to.”

“A rather difficult—! And here I was hoping—what on earth makes you say that?”

“Well—there’s something secret about you, isn’t there, John? Something concealed, a little room somewhere marked ‘Keep Out’?”

There was a long silence and then Steeves said lightly, “This is rather a setback for me, Lisa, I was hoping to ask you to marry me when the safari ends.”

“Me?”

“Did you really think I went about squiring beautiful young girls so attentively every day?”

“No—that is, surely you were just being friendly? John, I’m terribly flattered but let’s not talk about this any more. We shouldn’t do at all, you know.”

“Why wouldn’t we ‘do at all,’ as you put it?”

“Because … well, you don’t really have room in your life for marriage, do you?”

“I could change, you know,” he said. “I don’t have to go batting around the world forever.”

“Change into what?” she asked, and then, indignantly, “And why should you? You’re a beautiful person, John, just as you are. You give a great many people pleasure
by doing all the wonderfully dashing things they daydream of doing. It’s marvelous.”

“And very lonely,” he pointed out.

At this moment Mrs. Pollifax decided that it was more than time to announce herself: she dropped her shoe on the cement slab and said, “Oh dear!” and continued dropping things and picking them up again to give Lisa and Steeves time to adjust to her presence. When she walked out of the shower hut John had vanished and Lisa was folding up her chair. She turned and smiled faintly. “I suppose you heard all?”

“It was impossible not to,” admitted Mrs. Pollifax. “I waited as long as I could, but it was growing very damp and cold in there. It’s nearing sunset time, I think.”

“Yes, time for sweaters again. Thank you for—well, rescuing me.” She fell into step beside her, absently carrying the chair along with her. “Isn’t life strange?” she asked. “I read John’s latest book this winter and his photograph occupied the entire back of the bookjacket and I used to look at it—those sad eyes practically stabbing my soul—and I’d say, ‘Now there’s a man, if only I could meet someone like that.’ ”

“And now you have,” said Mrs. Pollifax, giving her an interested glance, “and you find a room inside of him marked ‘Keep Out’?”

“You really did hear everything.” Lisa sighed. “I wonder what made me say that. John strikes me—now that I’ve met him—as a character in a very contemporary novel, the kind that begins and ends in the same way, with the hero staring into his scotch and soda and about to leave another woman behind as he goes off to a new
adventure. He seems—caught by something. And terribly sad about it.”

“Caught,” repeated Mrs. Pollifax musingly. “A strange word to use.”

“People do get trapped, I suppose. Inside of images, all kinds of things. But he is a lovely person, isn’t he?”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded. “A very unusual man, yes, very charming and—as you suspected—very much a loner. But I think you’re looking for someone a little cozier, aren’t you?”

Lisa burst out laughing. “Cozier?”

“Someone warm and caring and devoted. Less complicated.” She reached her door and opened it. “It is sometimes,” she said, “very difficult to remain faithful to
oneself.
”

“Oh, I do hope you like Dad as much as he likes you,” Lisa blurted out, and then stopped, blushing. “Oh dear, I didn’t mean—What on earth am I doing carrying this chair with me?” she asked, noticing it for the first time. “I really must change for dinner. Which in this case,” she added, laughing, “means removing one sweater and adding another, or changing from jeans to corduroys!”

The sun had already set when Mrs. Pollifax descended the hill to join the group around the campfire, and the single lantern hanging from the post had been lighted. The flames of the fire held shades of blue in them tonight, and the wood crackled merrily.

“You mised an egret,” Cyrus told her with a welcoming smile. “Incredible sight.”

“And a family of monkeys scolding us from the trees,” put in Tom Henry. “They were certainly cross at finding
us here again, this must be their playground.”

“A dozen at least,” added Lisa.

“God I’m hungry,” said Amy Lovecraft. She was wearing still another new outfit tonight, a blue Jacquard turtleneck and dark-blue slacks over which she’d thrown a fleecy red jacket. Mrs. Pollifax wondered how many suitcases she traveled with, and decided it was better not to know.

Julian said, “I’ve given orders that dinner be served early tonight—before seven—because everyone is so hungry.”

“Marvelous,” said Amy, pronouncing it mav-lus.

“And what time is it now?”

Julian glanced at his watch and frowned. “The men are late, they should have begun setting the table by now. I’d better go up and see what the matter is.”

“Yes, do,” said Amy. “Frankly we’re all starving.”

Julian half rose from his chair and then froze and fell back in astonishment. Following his gaze Mrs. Pollifax saw three men move out of the darkness toward the campfire, silently, like phantoms rising out of the mist. At first she didn’t understand, thinking them Kafwala workers whom she’d not seen before, and then the firelight picked out the long barrel of a rifle, and as the three black men moved to surround them she felt the first taste of fear in her throat.

Steeves said with a gasp, “I say, who the hell—what
is
this?”

They had arrived so silently, their steps muted by the sound of the rapids, that Mrs. Pollifax found it difficult to believe in their reality. It was like opening one’s door in July to find Halloweeners on the doorstep. Then Julian,
looking grim, said,
“Nguti?”
and she knew these men were real and dangerous.

In excellent English the leader said, “If you move we shoot. We wish only hostages. You,” he said, pointing to Mrs. Pollifax. “You—walk over here.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Cyrus, starting to rise from his chair, but one of the men reached out and pushed him down.

“And you,” said their spokesman, pointing to Amy Lovecraft.

Mrs. Pollifax stood up, acutely aware of how snug the circle around the campfire looked. As she reluctantly crossed that circle, about to leave it, she became equally aware of each person she passed: of John Steeves looking furious, of Willem Kleiber shrinking back in his chair as if to make himself invisible, Lisa open-mouthed and plainly frightened, and Tom Henry studying the faces of the men with guns. When she reached the leader and turned, she saw that Cyrus was looking so outraged that she would have smiled if she hadn’t felt so much like crying. It was, after all, dinnertime, and she was hungry and cold and she had the distinct feeling that she was not going to be fed.

And then Amy Lovecraft came up behind her and the leader said to his confederate, “Take them—quickly,” and turning back he spoke across the fire to Julian. “You will remain very still, please. Your men on the hill have all been locked into the kitchen, your marconi is broken and your Land Rovers put out of action. I will have my gun on you, watching. I warn you, don’t try to follow. Don’t move.”

“You’re not Zambians,” Julian said curtly, watching
him. “How did you get into the park?”

“That’s our business.”

Whatever else was said, Mrs. Pollifax was not destined to hear because she was being pulled away from the scene by one of the men. He gripped her tightly under one arm and dragged her in among the trees and along the river, then pulled her up a steep hill until she came face to face with a Land Rover waiting in the darkness. A rope was tied around her wrists, binding them together tightly behind her back, and then she was shoved into the rear of the car and a rifle held at her chest. The rifle was lowered for the arrival of Amy Lovecraft, who was pushed in beside Mrs. Pollifax, and then one of the men climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, the Land Rover backed, turned and waited.

“This is terrifying,” whispered Amy Lovecraft. “Isn’t there something we can do?”

“With our wrists tied and a rifle pointed at us?” said Mrs. Pollifax dryly, and concentrated on catching her breath after the rush up the hill.

She heard footsteps, a muffled laugh, and the third man swung into the seat behind them. “Let’s get out of here—fast,” he said. “Turn on the headlights and move it, we can’t keep Sikota waiting.”

It was astonishing, thought Mrs. Pollifax, how furious she could feel at Aristotle as they bumped along the road in the darkness. It seemed to her the height of injustice that because of him she had come to Africa and now she was being carried off into the night while he remained back at the campfire safe, warm, unidentified and—most outrageous of all—looking forward to his dinner. Certainly Carstairs could never have foreseen such an ironic ending to her mission. Her first reaction to being abducted struck her now as tiresomely pious: she’d actually thanked heaven that Chanda had been given a film so that if anything happened to her there would be a record left behind for Carstairs. Her reaction now was much less noble: she felt that she would resent very much anything happening to her, she
thoroughly
resented being lifted out of her
safari, and under no circumstances did she feel that a few snapshots were an adequate exchange for a life. She was also hungry.

She turned and looked at Amy Lovecraft in the dim light from the dashboard and noticed that her hands were tied in front instead of behind her, and Mrs. Pollifax resented this very much too. In fact the depth of her indignation surprised her. Her own hands were tied in the back, which made it impossible to lean against the seat or to relax for even a second; it also demanded a great deal of effort from her just to remain on the seat, which was slippery. It was depressing, too, to reflect that of all the people on safari Amy Lovecraft was the last person she would have chosen as companion in such a situation. The woman was incalculable.

Having brought out her grievances and inspected them, Mrs. Pollifax began to feel better. About her abduction and her hunger she could do nothing, but she could at least try to like Mrs. Lovecraft. There had to be something lovable about her, she thought, and if they were going to be captives together she’d jolly well better find it now. She said in a comforting voice, “They’ll come after us, you know, it will be all right.”