The Clouds Beneath the Sun (14 page)

In truth, Natalie thought, Jack Deacon was a bit like a film star himself. Who did he remind her of? He had full, dark eyebrows, hair that rose up from his forehead in a wave, very slightly buck teeth, and prominent cheekbones. Who was it? Who was it? It was a film about American soldiers in World War II that she was thinking about, she had seen it in Cambridge. Not Marlon Brando, though he had been in the film too.

A log fell and a shower of crimson sparks rose into the air.

Yes, she had it.
The Young Lions
, that was the film. Starring Marlon Brando—and … and … Montgomery Clift—the name came to her: that was who Jack reminded her of.

Her mind went back to the Elgar. She knew it well. It was one of the pieces Dominic adored. Where was he now? she wondered. How often did he think of her? Did he think of her at all? She was thinking about him a little less each day, wasn’t she?

She changed the subject inside her head. The conversation at dinner had been different from usual too: politics. Eleanor had set that particular ball rolling.

“What are people saying in Nairobi, Jack? How soon will independence come?”

He wore a pale blue shirt with a plain gold ring on the little finger of one hand. Natalie thought he looked tired around the eyes.

“Most people are pushing for next year, but I think it will be further away than that. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on mid-’63.”

“Who, exactly, do you mean when you say ‘people’?” said Christopher.

There wasn’t much family resemblance between him and Jack, Natalie thought. Jack was a couple of inches taller, more muscular. There were one or two wisps of gray hair near his ears. He must be—what?—thirty-threeish. A bit old to have just got his Ph.D.

“I mean the leading figures in KANU and KADU—Kenyatta, Nzoia, Nambale.”

“These are men you know?” Eleanor had leaned forward so that her face came into the direct light of one of the hurricane lamps hanging from the roof of the refectory tent. That was when Natalie had noticed she was wearing lipstick.

“Yes, of course I know them—Nairobi’s not a big place. I’m a member of KANU, I’m on one of their committees. That’s why I couldn’t get here any sooner. I came as quickly as I could, after I heard about the murder.”

“Which committee is that?” said Arnold. “How many committees do they have?”

Jack extended the thumb of one hand. “A constitutional committee.” He put up his index finger. “A land reform committee, a foreign policy committee, a finance and tax committee, a labor law committee, an education committee—that’s the one I’m on—”

“Oh? Why is that?” Eleanor played with her spectacles.

Jack pushed back his chair. “Think about it. We white people are going to have a tricky time when independence comes. This is a black country. Black people, black politicians, will want to see immediate change. So we are going to see a rapid evolution in patterns of land ownership, in the ownership of the big industrial companies and the commercial outfits, like car dealerships, breweries, cinemas, bus companies.” He swiveled the ring on his little finger. “But there are two areas especially where they will need the whites, where white people who were born and raised here can be a big help—the banks and education. Most of the banks here are owned by whites, because most of the money originates in London or Johannesburg or New York. I know nothing about money but I
do
know about education and they—I’m talking about people like Kenyatta and Nzoia—know that they are going to need the help of educated people, white people with the right contacts, in universities in Britain, South Africa, America, to train schoolteachers, university professors, doctors, above all the bureaucracy that will run Kenya in the future. If Kenya is to be truly multiracial after independence, the best hope is that we—the whites—can help shape the country via its educational institutions.”

“And will it be multiracial?” Kees rested his chin on the fist of one hand. “Those newspapers you brought with you suggest there’s quite a bit of anti-white feeling building up.”

Jack tugged at one ear with his fingers. “Yes. Some chimpanzees, en route from Nairobi to the Medical Research Council laboratory in Britain, arrived dead. It seems they may have been poisoned, as a protest against what some people see as scientific colonialism. The specter of independence is infecting everything just now.”

He shifted in his seat. “There are two things of particular importance that are happening. KANU and KADU are jostling for position, and, with independence so very real all of a sudden, with a constitutional conference in London next February, old, traditional grievances are beginning to resurface, tribal memories and resentments, which may well come to a head after independence, if the various tribes don’t get what they want. And of course underneath it all, everyone knows that the more trouble there is, the quicker the British will want to leave.”

There had been a silence around the table then for quite some time.

Until Christopher had said, “What’s in it for you, Jack?”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come
on
. People
say
they go into politics for this or that idealistic reason but there’s always a personal—a selfish—motive, isn’t there? What can a white person hope to achieve in a black country? You must have some secret aim—money, power, position.”

Silence around the table.

Jack stared hard at Christopher.

This was a Christopher Natalie had never seen before.

The silence lengthened. Then Jack lifted his glass to his lips and drank some water. “I’ll ignore that.”

That was when Eleanor had changed the subject, and said to Natalie, “I understand you found a femur of a
Pelorovis
this morning. What can you tell us?” She removed her spectacles and rubbed her eyes.

Natalie fingered her watch. Above them, four hurricane lamps swayed in the breeze, casting a warm yellow glow over everything. “I’ll have to make some checks in the books I have with me, but I’m fairly certain it’s never been found so early down here. We had thought
Pelorovis
evolved about one and a half million years ago, then went extinct eight hundred thousand years ago—quite a short lifespan for a species, which generally last at least two million years. So this extends the life span and makes it an important find. Of interest to specialists only, I would say, but yes, well worth drawing attention to.” She brushed hair off her face. “Among zoologists it’s famous for having these down-turned tusks—very weird.”

“What are the theories?” Arnold Pryce, in a dark green shirt, had lit up his pipe. The smell was not unpleasant.

“About why its tusks were turned down?” Natalie was longing for a cigarette herself but she preferred to smoke alone. “One theory is that
Pelorovis
fed on small mammals and used its tusks to spear them. Another is that it fed on mammals—like voles—that live underground, and used the tusks to break through the soil.”

“Were they never used for defense?” Christopher rested his elbows on the table and looked levelly at Natalie. He was wearing a crisp white shirt that made his skin look darker. It suited him, she thought.

“I don’t see how they could have been, do you?” She held her hand out and curved her fingers down. “In order for the tusks to point forward, the buffalo would have to lift back its head. Very uncomfortable and not a strong posture for fighting.”

“Were its tusks ivory, like elephants, or hair, like rhinos?” Kees wore a button-down American-style shirt. He was the most fastidious dresser of all.

“Oh, ivory.
Pelorovis
was not related to the rhino in any way.”

“So, a short paper for
Nature
, yes?” Eleanor replaced her spectacles.

“If you agree, yes. Just a letter to the editor, describing what we’ve found. A few hundred words. Nothing earth shattering.”

“Never mind. It’s important in its way, scientifically, and every little thing adds up. It’s positive.” Eleanor looked around the table but no one said anything. She glanced at Christopher and then back to Natalie.

“Christopher tells me you have a theory about some stones you have encountered, some boulders. Is now a good time to discuss it?”

Natalie wiped her lips with her napkin. “I think ‘theory’ is a rather grand word for what is really just an idea, a hunch.” Her glance took in Christopher. She hadn’t thought he had paid much attention in the gorge when she had pointed out the boulders. But he hadn’t missed a thing.

“But go on anyway.” Eleanor’s gaze raked the table and she smiled. “No one’s going anywhere. I think we can all drink coffee and listen at the same time.”

This was a signal to Naiva to bring in the tray of coffee mugs.

Natalie reached for another banana. “Well, all right, here goes. My idea is this. When we excavate the gorge, we are looking essentially for three things—fossil bones, stone hand axes, plant remains. Fine. But what if early man already had a culture—and don’t jump down my throat, yet. I don’t mean symphony orchestras or film studios. What about the rudiments of a shelter?”

She paused, to give others the chance to object, but no one said anything.

Naiva began handing round the coffees. A jug of milk was placed on the table, and some sugar.

“What gave me the idea is this. As we’ve just been discussing, there are some remains of
Pelorovis
in the gorge. This adds to all the other bones already discovered there.” She helped herself to milk and, though she shouldn’t, one spoonful of sugar. “These buffalo remains were found in conjunction with a number of stone axes—nothing unusual there. Almost certainly, the axes were used to butcher the buffalo and slice the flesh off the bones. There are few human or hominid remains in the area, so this was a killing and eating area, maybe, but not a living area.” She stirred her coffee and drank some.

“However,”
she added deliberately, “and this is my main point… however, on one side of these remains—and
only
on one side—there are a lot of large stones, small boulders about the size of a head or a melon. The walls are nine or ten boulders high and they extend into the gorge—again, nine or ten boulders thick.” She looked hard at Eleanor and took a deep breath. “Now, this is as far as we’ve gone, so I can’t say that the evidence is any stronger than what I’ve just told you … but it seems to me, given the fact that these boulders are only on one side of the animal remains, and that the layout of the boulders is not random but is obviously artificial … I am wondering whether what we have here is a wall, man’s earliest wall. Perhaps built as a windbreak, something that would have offered some shelter from the elements while early man was having a meal. The prevailing wind is from the west, and the animal remains are all to the east of the stones.”

Another gulp of coffee. “And so, what I am saying is this: instead of excavating in a vertical direction at this point, we need to excavate—very carefully—in a horizontal direction,
into
the wall of the gorge, and record the position not just of bones and axes and fossil plants, but of ordinary large stones as well. We could be overlooking important evidence.” She cupped her hands around the coffee mug. “That’s it. That’s all.”

All eyes now turned to Eleanor. She had been listening intently, her chin resting on the ball of her hand. For a moment she said nothing.

Natalie’s heart was beating fast. Eleanor, she well knew, was famous for her caution, for never overinterpreting evidence, and she could be very caustic—vitriolic—with those who did.

Natalie glanced at Jack.

He smiled and winked.

At length, Eleanor spoke. “Have you by any chance made a drawing or diagram of this ‘wall,’ so-called?”

Natalie nodded.

“May we see it?”

Natalie rose. “I’ll get it.”

She got up and hurried to her quarters. She had left the drawing on her writing table and was soon back in her place in the refectory tent.

“Here you are,” she said, sliding the drawing across.

Eleanor stared at the drawing for what seemed an age. Tonight she was wearing a bright blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal her wrists and forearms. Her hair shone in the yellow light.

In the silence they could hear nightjars worrying in the trees of the camp.

Finally, she looked up and across at Natalie. “I don’t think your case is proved, my dear—not yet. But I commend you on your observation.”

She tapped the drawing with her spectacles. “This could be nothing—or it could be the most exciting find in … oh, I don’t know how long. Clearly, we must follow it up.” She put her spectacles back on and smiled warmly at Natalie. “I have to tell you, my dear, Christopher was the one who brought you on this dig—I felt we needed another anatomist. Well, Christopher was right and I was wrong.”

She handed back the drawing. “Don’t lose that. Make a copy. We’ll act on your hunch first thing tomorrow.”

It was then that she suggested listening to some music, a proposal that everyone had accepted enthusiastically.

There were no flames in the fire now, just the crimson glow of the crisp embers and the occasional crackle as the wood snapped under the heat.

Elgar’s concerto, Natalie knew, because Dominic had told her, had been composed at his house in Sussex, England, from where he had been able to hear the rumble of artillery across the Channel in France, in World War I. He had hummed the main themes on his deathbed, suggesting that it was, perhaps, his favorite composition. The concerto, as she also knew, this time from hearing it so often, was Elgar’s response to the war, an expression of his disillusionment.

What music did her father play these days, late at night? she wondered. He had always adored Bach and had a copy of the famous painting by Elias Haussmann in his study at home, the bewigged organist gazing down at the piano. Would she ever see that room again, hear her father play, turn the music for him, as she had done so often when she was a girl? Without her father, she had no home. Her room in Cambridge was cozy, especially in wintertime, when the gas fire was lit and she toasted tea cakes on it. But it wasn’t home. The camp at Kihara was fine as far as it went, and she felt at ease here, most of the time, but it wasn’t home either. What
was
going to happen? Dominic wasn’t coming back, but did her father have it in him to forgive her for what he thought she had done to her mother? Should she write to him? But if she did, and he didn’t reply, they would be further apart than ever.