Travels with Myself and Another (19 page)

The
campement
for visitors to the game park is made of bucaroos, as usual, and a communal dining room. Also communal toilet for several bucaroos, which does not work. Very primitive altogether, but on a height and therefore catches a slight breeze. You take your tinned food to the dining room and a cheerful and incompetent black opens the tins and heats whatever is inside to a lukewarm temperature. The only reason to eat is from necessity, to keep up one’s strength as we always say of drink; I long for iced water.

After the usual stunned afternoon sleep, I set out with Ibrahim and a Mandara tribesman called Ali. Ali’s people were a fisherman tribe on Lake Tchad; I don’t know how Ali got down this way on to dry land, but consider it a mistake. He is tall, filthy, his whole face lined with tattooed scars, his eyes red, wearing very short blue shorts, a singlet and a black velvet cap like Nehru’s white one. At 5 p.m., after failing to find anything much on the tracks (which are no pleasure to ride, and the heat is still suffocating) Ali went off, leaving me and Ibrahim under a tree, beside a pond, and near some enormous elephant droppings. We could hear the elephants tearing down trees for their dinner, in the bush. Ali reappeared about half an hour later and suggested that I follow him on foot, into that high bush, to look at a herd of six elephants, which was feeding some six kilometres away. I doubt if he knows anything about distance; but I know that night falls at 6 p.m. I said
quelle bêtise,
crossly, and thought really the French were daft, why didn’t they train their guides better.

On the way back to the
campement
we saw a hunting lioness, moving fast and flat through the long grass; it was the same tawny sunburned colour as the grass and looked extremely dangerous. Ali was so excited that he screamed in a high voice, whereupon the lioness made off.

Now that it is somewhat cooler (or perhaps now that the lions are hunting), the animals are on the move. I saw running giraffes, a slow long rocking movement of shapes among the trees; running gazelle, too lovely for words, like flying. Families of warthogs were galloping away as if on some private racetrack. Occasionally we cross mountainous elephant droppings and torn trees. Jackals look like dogs and run the same way. There were two amazing birds, white and black bodies, bigger than storks, with red beaks and red, yellow, and blue marking about their eyes. “What are those birds, Ali?” “Birds,” said he. I could not believe that the anthills really were anthills, though they had to be, but they were much bigger, higher, and solider than I had imagined, so I asked Ali what they were, too. “They have always been like that,” he answered. I’m not going to learn much nature lore from him.

This reserve is claustrophobic, and not my dream picture of how the animals live in Africa. The bush creeps up to the track, the animals disappear into it. Sense of tremendous goings-on, invisible and silent, hidden by the high grass. The heat is like a punishment.

My intestinal tract is cause for complaint, if that’s the source of the trouble. Starting to swell again, from the feet up. Tired and disappointed. I feel as if there were a barrier like glass between me and Africa; I have not found whatever it is that I am seeking.

February 1:
Six other whites, French people, are staying here. I saw them last night in the communal dining room. They are very gay, on holiday from whatever their city jobs are. The shops in towns are still owned and run by whites, and there is always a white in the background, at the garages, hotels, in the government, tactfully holding together such civilization (oh that loose word) as exists. These people might be trades-men or civil servants, with their wives. Weirdly dressed, according to my preconceptions from movies and books; ladies in tiny shorts, gents in city shoes and bits and pieces of outdoor clothing—more like beachwear than animal-watching. They are well equipped with food, as for an extended picnic.

It is not to be imagined that whites, because so few and far between, fall upon each other, especially upon strangers, with cries of welcome and delight. The French party did not notice me and I did not think it correct to make overtures.

I spoke to the game warden, who was dining well and alone, about Ali; very affably of course, but pointing out that it was hardly sound to suggest venturing into the bush, unarmed, after elephants. I had read that in the game parks in East Africa one was never allowed to get out of one’s car, or go off the track without permission. The car smell (petrol, oil) muffles the human smell and the animals have not yet put two and two together; also one can get away quick in a car. The game warden said, “Oh no, one must always have confidence in the guides.”
(“Il faut toujours faire confiance aux pisteurs.”)
“They know the animals well, and the terrain. You are safe with them.” I still did not agree with this, but felt I was being cowardly, and after all the game warden must know his business.

This morning, Ali and Ibrahim turned up an hour late; Ali’s fault; Ibrahim, left to himself, is a most reliable boy. We were too late to get to a mirador above a drinking pond, before dawn, to watch the elephants come for their morning splash. I was furious and Ibrahim was miserable; he had not slept all night, due to the bedbugs in Ali’s hut. He looked dirty, unlike him, and very unhappy. We drove futilely, as the sun rose higher, and saw nothing; I was conscious of time lost and costly kilometres. We arrived at a dead end of track where another, older guide was setting off with three French people, a peroxided lady in peacock blue trousers and little white ballet slippers, two men just as oddly clad. Ali and their guide talked excitedly; Ali explained there were elephants in the bush, and urged me to follow. Filled with doubt, I tailed along behind.

The Frenchmen made jokes in their usual voices. I remembered two rules about proper bush behaviour: (1) Wear no bright colours. (2) Do not speak. Elephants have bad eyesight and are alleged to see nothing more than twenty feet away; but have fine hearing and an acute sense of smell. The older guide and Ali were both busy being very Red Indian, noting twigs, droppings, sifting dust to see how the wind blew. I thought them theatrical for our benefit. We walked single file deeper and deeper into the grass which was higher than my head. I doubted that this undertaking was well advised.

We heard a tree crash, some distance ahead, and Ali cavorted with excitement. On we went until we saw, at a reasonable distance, an enormous bull elephant silently eating the tasty top of a thorn tree. I focused my binoculars, had a good look and felt no urge whatever to proceed. The French, innocent and unafraid, city people to their ballet slippers and the toes of their pointed shoes, pushed on. I told Ali we would go back.

He led me on another track; I had lost all sense of direction as soon as we got into the bush; trees look alike, you see a few feet ahead of you on the narrow beaten path. I heard in the grass to my left a lion; have never heard one before, but knew at once what this snarling, coughing sound was. I was badly shocked and whispered to Ali,
“Un lion.” “Oui,”
he said.
“Où?”
“Where?” when referring to a lion, is not the sort of question you expect from a game park guide; it did the exact opposite of inspire confidence. But it was not the lion that had frozen Ali and made his eyes roll: in front of us, some twenty yards away, silent as stone, stood elephants—we had come on a little clearing. There were two females and a big bull, motionless. Fortunately I did not see the two baby elephants behind the females, or my panic would have been greater.

I focused my binoculars with clumsy hands, terrified, and there sprang into view, far too close, an enormous still head, with small suspicious eyes under old drooping lids, looking into mine. The last thing in life I had ever wanted was to be face to face with elephants, on foot, in the bush, accompanied by an imbecile. Ali was desperately lighting matches and sifting dust; too late, I thought, if we are downwind they’d have charged us by now. The elephant fears no animal except man, with cause; and is incensed by the human smell. At this point there was a crunch to our right and behold, much nearer, a much bigger bull elephant was gently pulling off bits from a tree top with his trunk.

Ali, his eyes rolling, whispered,
“Beaucoup éléphant.”
I was too alarmed to speak, but pushed him, to indicate that we should get a move on. He went ahead, walking fast and silently. I followed trying not to make a sound, and when he stopped, I raised my eyes from the path and saw that he had brought us, in a half circle, even closer to the elephants. The two baby elephants now all too visible. I was rooted to the spot with fear, an expression I have often read but never experienced. I was also beside myself with anger, furious with the game warden, furious with Ali; imagine being in this Charlie Chaplin situation of the greatest peril, because the whole lot of them were bloody fools. The elephants, again soundlessly, lifted their ears, which stood out like tremendous swaying leaves, and silently turned to face us.

Ali began to take me, respectfully, by the bottom, to urge me away, his eyes were wide, staring, his mouth open in shock. I slapped him smartly on the shoulder and hissed,
“Cours! Je te suis.”
He ran, leaping on his huge flat feet, and I ran after him; I would not have believed that I could run so fast and so silently. I decided not to think about the lion in the grass; better just not to think of it. After some distance, Ali slowed down; we were still however in an odious fix, able to see nothing over the grass.
“Bon maintenant,”
Ali announced a bit breathlessly. It did not look
bon
to me.

We went on walking; the heat was the least of my concerns. Finally Ali came to a broad dust track, which he recognized. He stamped this with his bare foot, laughed, and said idiotically,
“D’accord.”
I have never so wanted to hit anyone, but I never have hit anyone and it’s too late to start. Ali now turned and said smugly,
“Ali bon type. Blanc veut voir éléphant. Ali trouve éléphant toujours. Toujours.”
It seemed futile to point out that the elephants had found us, if anything; and that he was a menace to life and it would be a frosty day in Waza before I ventured into the bush with him again.

Ibrahim was waiting by the car. I said furiously that I was hot and wanted to go back to the
campement.
On the way Ali boasted of his exploits to Ibrahim while I sat behind, seething. We saw ostriches, an untidy weird bird, with an upper thigh like a ballet dancer and feet like high-laced black shoes. Their walk and run are prissy and feminine and incredibly fast. We stopped at a water hole to watch a tribe of brown antelope—there must have been several hundred—crowded together like sheep, horns and heads clear against the sky, queuing for their turn at a drink and a wash. The water hole was lined with drinking and wading and rolling bodies; when the occupants were finished they moved off, still in that close silent formation and were lost under the trees, while newcomers took their place. The organization and amity of this communal life was astonishing; the silence and the beauty were heart-lifting.

I saw a tree full of birds that looked like eagles, and a couple of grey monkeys; useless to ask Ali for nature lore; besides I was still too angry to talk to him. The heat had become intolerable, and I decided I’d had enough of Waza, French game parks were not my dish; I meant to look at animals with love, not in mortal terror, and hoped to find someone who would explain them to me. I paid Ali off, and told Ibrahim that we would leave after I had had some breakfast.

Left at 10 a.m. for Mora, the main town of the Kirdi country. The road climbs and is bad as always. Mora has a French resident, like a district commissioner I think, but it’s a native town with a market, the Sultan’s palace, and the small jammed dwellings of the blacks. The market was poor, main interest being the beads, which are brilliant, cheap (is there a great bead industry for black consumers?), and coveted by the Kirdi ladies who wear nothing else.

My pressing problem was to open a tin of ham for lunch, without a tin opener. We drove around to the Sultan’s palace and found the old gentleman sitting in the street, under a tree outside the gateway to the royal compound. He sat on a chair surrounded by sons, ranging in age from naked pot-bellied babies of three to adolescents. The babies wore
gri-gris,
magic objects of some sort for warding off evil, in little leather pouches around their necks; otherwise they wore nothing; the youths wore trousers. The Sultan was robed and benign. One of his elder sons translated. (I think the multiple wife system must be fun for the children; a child is sure of having numerous little brothers and sisters of his own age to play with.)

The Sultan sent for a tinted photograph of himself, looking like a bad job done at the beginning of the century. Framed in gold. A memento of his journey to Paris. I asked politely if he liked Paris and he replied that he liked it better here. Did I not like best where I was born? Answer is no, and moreover I don’t like any place permanently, but that was too complex. The Sultan ordered my tin of ham opened, having sent for a knife. Clasping my greasy lunch, I bade him farewell. He seemed a nice old man, and I think his people will hardly find themselves catapulted into the twentieth century under his rule. The local potentates—sultans, chiefs—are the absolute rulers of their surrounding tribes; this must be the last living sample of the Middle Ages.

On to Ondjila, a Kirdi village in the hills. A huge stalwart man of thirty-five is the chief of this tribe who live in specially small and tall round mud huts with thatched roofs, nestling in the rocks of the mountainside. The chief does not speak French but a fourteen-year-old brother does. The Chief is accustomed to showing
les blancs
his palace, for a tip. In the porch—a thatched loggia with mud benches down the sides—the fifteen wives of the chief sat doing bead-work. They buy the long strings of beads at the market and work them into fancy wear, for their necks and waists, their only clothing. The youngest wife looked about fourteen. The chief has eleven children thus far; he cannot have put his heart into the job. His mother was also there; the old women are the worst advertisement for primitive life as they all look shrivelled and shrunken and bitter. I haven’t yet seen a happy old woman’s face; same is not true of old men.