Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness - Alexandra Fuller [87]
Dad takes his pipe out of his mouth and cocks his head, listening. “Oh bloody hell, you’re right,” he says. He hurries up the steps and I follow, hoping to look supportive, while also trying to ensure that I don’t get to the door first. Dad walks into the guesthouse. “Okay, Bobo,” he says, putting up a hand. I look down. He has just stepped over a beautifully patterned snake with a diamond-shaped head, as thick as a strong man’s forearm—a puff adder. Puff adders kill more people than any other snake on the continent; their preferred diet is rodents and frogs (of which the Tree of Forgetfulness is an endlessly, self-replenishing buffet) and they strike from an S position so that they can hit a target at almost any angle. This one is in an S position now.
“Fetch Emmanuel,” Dad says.
“A manual?” I repeat, my mind racing with the possibilities—The Care and Prevention of Snakebite, perhaps; or Where There Is No Doctor.
“Yes,” Dad says. “First house on your left as you leave the yard.”
So with Mum still singing her opera—“Vittoria! Vittoria! L’alba vindice appar”—I run under the brick archway at the top of the camp and into the pitch-dark Zambezi Valley night yelling for Emmanuel like a crazed missionary, “Emmanuel! Emmanuel!” And it occurs to me that this could very well be our triple obituary: Dad bitten to death by a puff adder; Mum drowned drunk in the bath listening to Puccini; me fallen into the dark and raptured into heaven while yelling for the Messiah. I imagine Vanessa at our mass funeral saying, “Well, this is bloody typical, isn’t it?”
But between them, Dad and Emmanuel manage to kill the snake—or as Dad says, “give it a fatal headache”—using one of the many stout walking sticks Mum has bought over the years from a deaf-mute carpenter in the village. “How can I say no to the poor man?” she says, by way of explaining why she has so many. “I’m almost his only customer.” And by the time Mum comes out of the bath, refreshed and ready for another glass of wine, order has been restored to the Tree of Forgetfulness: Emmanuel has gone back to his house; the deceased puff adder is in an empty beer crate behind the kitchen; the dogs are back on chairs and laps; Dad is shuffling the cards for another round of twos and eights.
“There was a puff adder in the guesthouse,” I tell Mum.
Mum doesn’t look suitably impressed. “Oh?” She shakes the box of wine. “How much of this have you drunk?”
“Most of it,” I say.
“Oh Bobo, really!”
“But my nerves,” I object. “They’re in shreds.”
Mum sighs. “One tiny little snake and you collapse.” Then Mum notices the broken walking stick and her face falls. “Oh no, that really is too bad. You didn’t break one of my deaf-mute walking sticks, did you?”
“Well, which would you rather?” I ask. “Your deaf-mute walking stick or me?”
“I’d rather have my walking stick in one piece,” Mum says, scooping up one of the Jack Russells and nuzzling its ear. “Wouldn’t I, Papa Doc?”
“Right, that’s it,” I say. “I’m going to write an Awful Book and this time it really will be about you.”
Mum sits down under the Tree of Forgetfulness, Papa Doc on her lap. She looks at Dad. “Did you hear that, Tim?” she says, her lips twitching. “Bobo’s going to write the sequel.”
“Say again,” Dad says.
“AWFUL BOOK!” Mum shouts. “BOBO’S GOING TO WRITE ANOTHER ONE.”
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mum and Dad. Lake Kariba. Zambia, 2008.
I wish to acknowledge authors whose work was most informative in the course of writing this book: Caroline Elkins; Trevor Royle; Leonard Thompson; Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg; Meryl Nass; Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock; Paul Moorcraft and Peter McLaughlin; SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret).
Deepest thanks to my agent, Melanie Jackson, for support and encouragement and for knowing that I had this story in my bones.
And also to my editor, Ann Godoff, for unfailing patience, compassion and for guidance, one sentence at a time.
Thanks to Joan Blatt for above-and-beyond extreme friendship.
Thanks to