Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight_ An African Childhood - Alexandra Fuller [109]
Mum, very glamorous in red and black, sweeps through the wedding with a cigar in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. She looks ready to fight a bull. She takes a swig of champagne and it trickles down her chin. “God doesn’t mind,” she says. She takes a pull on her cigar; great clouds of smoke envelop her head and she emerges, coughing, after a few minutes to announce, “Jesus was a wine drinker himself.”
In the end, I don’t marry a Zambian.
I’ve been up in Lusaka, between semesters at university, riding Dad’s polo ponies, when I spot my future husband. I’ve just turned twenty-two.
I can’t see his face. He’s wearing a polo helmet with a face guard. He is crouched on the front of his saddle and is light in the saddle, easy with the horse, casual in pursuit of the ball.
“Who is that?”
An American, it turns out, running a safari company in Zambia, whitewater and canoe safaris on the Zambezi River.
I ask if he needs a cook for one of his camps.
He asks if I’ll come down to the bush with him on an exploratory safari.
Everyone warns him, “Her dad isn’t called Shotgun Tim for nothing.”
Dad is not going to have two daughters pregnant out of wedlock if he has anything to do with it. Dad has told me, “You’re not allowed within six feet of a man before the bishop has blessed the union.” He has set a watchman up outside the cottage in which I now sleep. The watchman has a panga and a plow-disk of fire with which to discourage visitors. Although any visitor would also have to brave the trip down to the farm on the ever-disintegrating roads. Anyway, since Vanessa left home and married, the torrent of men that used to gush to our door from all over the country has dwindled to a drought-stricken trickle.
Charlie tells his river manager to make up a romantic meal for the wonderful woman he is bringing to the bush with him. Rob knows me. He snorts, “That little sprog. She’s your idea of a beautiful woman?”
Rob knew me when I was tearing around the farm on a motorbike, worm-bellied and mud-splattered. He saw me the first time I got drunk and had to go behind the Gymkhana Club to throw up in the bougainvillea. He knew me before I was officially allowed to smoke. He used to look the other way while I sneaked cigarettes from his pack on top of the bar.
Charlie and I leave the gorge under hot sun and float in canoes into the open area of the lower Zambezi. At lunch we are charged by an elephant. I run up an anthill. Charlie stands his ground. When we resume the float, several crocodiles fling themselves with unsettling speed and agility into the water, where I imagine them surging under our crafts. We disturb land-grazing hippos, who crash back onto the river, sending violent waves toward us. When we get to the island on which Rob (coming down earlier by speedboat) has left tents and a cold box, Charlie disturbs a snake, which comes chasing out of long grass at me.
We set up the tent, make a fire, and then open the cold box to reveal Rob’s idea of a romantic meal for a beautiful woman: one beer and a pork chop on top of a lump of swimming ice.
That night there are lion in camp. They are so close we can smell them, their raw-breath and hot-cat-urine scent. A leopard coughs, a single rasping cough, and then is silent. A leopard on the hunt is silent. Hyenas laugh and woo-ooop! They are following the lion pride, waiting for a kill, restless and hungry and running. Neither of us sleeps that night. We lie awake listening to the predators, to each other breathing.
The next weekend I take Charlie back to Mkushi with me to introduce him to Mum and Dad.
Dad is standing in front of the fireplace when we arrive. It’s a cool winter day and now the fire is lit at teatime. Mum is all smiles, great overcompensating smiles to make up for the scowls coming from Dad.
She says, “Tea?”
We drink tea. The dogs leap up and curl on any available lap. The dog on Charlie’s lap begins to scratch, spraying fleas. Then it licks, legs flopped open. Charlie pushes the dog to the floor, where it lands with astonishment and glares at him.