A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [29]
The passengers in Albert’s jeep have gained the status of witnesses, to be questioned endlessly about what they saw and heard and felt. A gang of children, including Rolph, Charlie, a set of eight-year-old twin boys from Phoenix, and Louise, the chubby twelve-year-old, stampede along a slatted path to a blind beside a watering hole: a wooden hut full of long benches with a slot they can peek through, invisible to the animals. It’s dark inside. They rush to the slot, but no animals are drinking at the moment.
“Did you actually see the lion?” Louise asks, with wonder.
“Lioness,” Rolph says. “There were two, plus a lion. And three cubs.”
“She means the one that got shot,” Charlie says, impatient. “Obviously we saw it. We were inches away!”
“Feet,” Rolph corrects her.
“Feet are made out of inches,” Charlie says. “We saw everything.”
Rolph has already started to hate these conversations—the panting excitement behind them, the way Charlie seems to revel in it. A thought has been troubling him. “I wonder what will happen to the cubs,” he says. “The lioness who got shot must have been their mom—she was eating with them.”
“Not necessarily,” Charlie says.
“But if she was…”
“Maybe the dad will take care of them,” Charlie says, doubtfully. The other children are quiet, considering the question.
“Lions tend to raise their cubs communally”—a voice comes from the far end of the blind. Mildred and Fiona were already there or have just slipped in; being old and female, they’re easily missed. “The pride will likely take care of them,” Fiona says, “even if the one killed was their mother.”
“Which it might not have been,” Charlie adds.
“Which it might not have been,” Mildred agrees.
It doesn’t occur to the children to ask Mildred, who was also in the jeep, what she saw.
“I’m going back,” Rolph tells his sister.
He follows the path back up to the hotel. His father and Mindy are still in the smoky bar; the strange, celebratory feeling unnerves Rolph. His mind bends again and again to the jeep, but his memories are a muddle: the lioness springing; a jerk of impact from the gun; Chronos moaning during the drive to the doctor, blood collecting in an actual puddle under his head on the floor of the jeep, like in a comic book. All of it is suffused with the feel of Mindy holding him from behind, her cheek against his head, her smell: not bready, like his mom’s, but salty, bitter almost—a smell that seems akin to the lions themselves.
He stands by his father, who pauses in the middle of an army story he’s telling with Ramsey. “You tired, Son?”
“Want me to walk you upstairs?” Mindy asks, and Rolph nods: he does want that.
The blue, mosquitoey night pushes in from the hotel windows. Outside the bar, Rolph is suddenly less tired. Mindy collects his key from the front desk, then says, “Let’s go out on the porch.”
They step outside. Dark as it is, the silhouettes of mountains against the sky are even darker. Rolph can dimly hear the voices of the other children, down in the blind. He’s relieved to have escaped them. He stands with Mindy at the edge of the porch and looks at the mountains. Her salty, tangy smell surrounds him. Rolph senses her waiting for something and he waits, too, his heart stamping.
There is a cough farther down the porch. Rolph sees the orange tip of a cigarette move in the dark, and Albert comes toward them with a creak of boots. “Hello there,” he says to Rolph. He doesn’t speak to Mindy, and Rolph decides the one hello must be for both of them.
“Hello,” he greets Albert.
“What are you up to?” Albert asks.
Rolph turns to Mindy. “What are we up to?”
“Enjoying the night,” she says, still facing the mountains, but her voice is tense. “We should go up,” she tells