Scribbling the Cat - Alexandra Fuller [75]
I said, “At least it’s not salvaged tourist meat in the deep freeze. Ha, ha.” But what had sounded ridiculous and impossible a few days ago was beginning to feel increasingly and fatally likely.
When Mapenga sat down on the sofa, the lion piled on top of him, knocked him over, and began vigorously licking his face and arms.
I sat in a chair as far away from the lion as I could get and lit a cigarette.
K went into the house to wash up. The lion was now standing astride his prostrate owner and taking long, appreciative strokes of Mapenga’s neck. “I think he likes the taste of salt from my sweat,” Mapenga laughed. “Hey Mambo, my darling boy. Hey Mambo, Mambo.” The lion took one of Mapenga’s arms in his mouth and chewed on it. “Oh,” laughed Mapenga, wiping blood off his hand from a couple of puncture wounds, “he’s eating me. Don’t eat me Mambo—that hurts.”
“Ha,” I bleated weakly, and regretted instantly that I had uttered any noise at all.
The lion, who had been entirely focused on his master, abruptly turned his yellow-brown eyes on me. His look went straight through me, down my spine, and hit the soles of my feet. Remembering that animals can smell fear, I puffed furiously on my cigarette, creating what I hoped to be a curtain of odorous smoke between the cat and myself. To no effect. The lion jumped off Mapenga, sauntered past the coffee table, and, rising on his back legs, knocked me flat back in my chair.
“He’s just showing you love,” laughed Mapenga as my cigarette flew out of my hand and my sunglasses were knocked off my head. “Just push him off,” he said as the lion cupped both front paws around the back of my neck and tore my shirtsleeve from shoulder to elbow. “Down, Mambo,” said Mapenga as Mambo’s dewclaw caught on the back of my neck. “It’s only play-play biting.”
Once again, K came to my rescue. The lion was plucked off me by the scruff of his neck and pinned to the ground.
“You okay?” K asked me.
I nodded and tried to rearrange what very little was left of my dignity.
“I’m going to put this cat outside,” said K. He held the furious lion by the tail and dragged him off the veranda backward. The lion gave a whimpering sort of grunt as he was sent staggering out onto the lawn, and then he rolled onto his side and looked at K with what I could interpret only as a plea for mercy. K wagged his finger at the lion. “Behave yourself, my boy, or you’ll learn respect the hard way.” The lion laid his ears flat and blinked meekly.
“In the wild, he’d be getting the crap beaten out of him by the other lions,” said K to Mapenga. “You need to beat the crap out of him once in a while, or he’ll turn around and eat you one day.”
“Shit,” Mapenga laughed, “I’m not going to beat the crap out of that lion. He’s stronger than me. I’m scared of the bastard.”
Or Why We Are Here
Mapenga’s boat
MAPENGA WAS IN THE Special Branch of the Rhodesian army during the war. “It’s where they sent the clever bastards,” he said, cracking open a beer and sitting back on his sofa (Mapenga and I were redolent with the stench rubbed onto us by Mambo; K alone still looked and smelled unruffled). “The shit we did.” Mapenga leaned forward and looked into the bottom of my thoughts, his eyes narrowing and direct. He had an unnervingly direct manner and it was impossible to look away from those eyes; intelligent, passionate, mad, piercing. His lips trembled with intensity when he spoke, so that it looked as if he was having a hard time expressing the magnitude of his thoughts. He said, “They taught me well.” He smiled suddenly. “I can get anyone to tell me anything. I can get anyone to do