“The meaning of meat,” Elliot says. “I never thought of it that way.”
“The bush makes you see your real place in the world,” says Johnny. “Here, you’re reminded of what you really are.”
“Animals,” Elliot murmurs.
Johnny nods. “Animals.”
And that’s what I see when I look around the campfire that night. A circle of feeding animals, teeth ripping into chunks of roasted impala meat. Just one day after being stranded in the wild, we have devolved into savage versions of ourselves, eating with our bare hands as juices drip down our chins, our faces streaked with black from charred fat. At least we do not worry about starving out here in the bush, which teems with meat on the hoof and on the wing. With his rifle and skinning knife, Johnny will keep us well fed.
He sits in the shadows just outside our circle, watching us gorge. I wish I could read his face, but it’s closed to me tonight. Does he look at us with contempt, these clueless clients, helpless as baby birds who need him to put food in our mouths? Does he blame us somehow for Clarence’s death? He picks up the empty bottle of whiskey that Sylvia has just tossed aside and deposits it in the burlap sack where we store our rubbish, which he insists we must haul out. Leave no trace, he says; that is how we respect the land. Already the rubbish bag clinks with glass empties, but there is no danger we’ll run out of booze anytime soon. Mrs. Matsunaga is allergic to alcohol, Elliot drinks only sparingly, and Johnny seems determined to stay stone-cold sober until we are rescued.
He returns to the fire and, to my surprise, he sits down beside me.
I look at him, but his eyes stay on the flames as he says quietly: “You’re handling the situation well.”
“Am I? I didn’t think so. Not particularly.”
“I appreciated your help today. Skinning the impala, breaking down the carcass. You’re a natural in the bush.”
That makes me laugh. “I’m the one who didn’t want to be here. The one who insists on hot showers and proper toilets. This trip was about me being a good sport.”
“To please Richard.”
“Who else?”
“I hope he’s impressed.”
I glance sideways at Richard, who is not looking at me. He’s too busy chatting up Vivian, whose formfitting T-shirt leaves no doubt that she’s braless. I focus, once again, on the fire. “Being a good sport only gets you so far in life.”
“I hear from Richard that you’re a bookseller.”
“Yes, I manage a bookshop in London. In the real world.”
“This isn’t the real world?”
I glance around at the shadows surrounding our campfire. “This is a fantasy, Johnny. Something out of a Hemingway novel. I guarantee, it’s going to show up in one of Richard’s thrillers someday.” I laugh. “Don’t be surprised if he makes you the villain.”
“What part do you play in his novels?”
I study the fire. And say, wistfully: “I used to be the love interest.”
“No longer?”
“Nothing stays the same, does it?” No, now I’m the millstone. The inconvenient girlfriend who’ll have to be dispatched by the villain, so the hero can pursue some new romantic interest. Oh, I know all about how things work in men’s thrillers because I sell those novels to countless pale, flabby men who are all, in their minds, James Bond.
Richard knows just how to tap into their fantasies because he shares them. Even now, as he reaches over with his silver lighter to light Mr. Matsunaga’s cigarette, he is playing the suave hero. James Bond would never fuss with a mere match.
Johnny picks up a stick and prods the fire, pushing a log deeper into the flames. “For Richard, this may be only a fantasy. But this one has real teeth.”
“Yes, of course you’re right. It’s not a fantasy. It’s a bloody nightmare.”
“Then you understand the situation,” he murmurs.
“I understand that everything’s changed. It’s not a holiday any longer.” I add, softly: “And I’m frightened.”
“You don’t have to be, Millie. Watchful, yes, but not frightened. Now, a city like Johannesburg, that’s a scary place. But here?” He shakes his head and smiles. “Here, everything’s just trying to survive. Understand that, and you will, too.”
“Easy for you to say. You grew up in this world.”
He nods. “My parents had a farm in Limpopo Province. Every day, when I walked out into the fields, I’d pass leopards perched in trees, watching me. I got to know them all, and they knew me.”
“They never attacked?”
“I like to think we had an agreement, those leopards and I. It was respect between predators. But it didn’t mean we ever trusted each other.”
“I’d be afraid to step out of my house. There are so many ways to die here. Lions. Leopards. Snakes.”
“I have a healthy respect for them all, because I know what they’re capable of.” He grins at the fire. “When I was fourteen, I was bitten by a pit viper.”
I stare at him. “And you’re smiling about it?”
“It was entirely my fault. I collected snakes as a kid. Caught them myself, and kept them in various containers in my bedroom. But one day I got cocky and my viper bit me.”
“Good God. What happened then?”
“Luckily it was a dry bite, with no venom. But that taught me there’s a penalty for carelessness.” He gives a regretful shake of the head. “The worst part was, my mother made me give up my snakes.”
“I can’t believe she let you collect them in the first place. Or that she ever let you step foot outside with leopards around.”
“But that’s what our ancestors did, Millie. This is where we all come from. Some part of you, some ancient memory deep in your brain, recognizes this continent as home. Most people have lost touch with it, but the instincts are still there.” Gently he reaches out and touches my forehead. “That’s how you stay alive here, by reaching deep for those ancient memories. I’ll help you find them.”
Suddenly I feel Richard’s eyes on us. Johnny feels it, too, and instantly conjures up a big smile, as if a switch has been flipped. “Wild game roasting on the fire. Nothing to beat it, eh, everybody?” he calls out.
“Way more tender than I ever expected,” Elliot says, licking juices from his fingers. “I feel like I’m getting in touch with my inner caveman!”
“How about you and Richard do the butchering when I bring down the next one?”
Elliot looks startled. “Uh … me?”
“You’ve seen how it’s done.” Johnny looks at Richard. “Think you can do it?”
“Of course we can,” says Richard, staring straight back at Johnny. I’m sitting between the two of them, and although Richard has ignored me for most of the meal, he now slings an arm around my shoulder, as if to declare ownership. As if he considers Johnny a romantic rival who would steal me away.
The thought makes my face flush hot.
“In fact,” says Richard, “all of us are ready to pitch in. We can start tonight, by keeping watch.” He holds out his hands for the rifle, which is always at Johnny’s side. “You can’t go all night without sleeping.”
“But you’ve never shot a rifle like that,” I point out.
“I’ll learn.”
“Don’t you think that’s up to Johnny to decide?”
“No, Millie. I do not think he should be the only one in control of the gun.”
“What are you doing, Richard?” I whisper.
“I could ask the same of you.” The look he gives me is radioactive. Everyone around the campfire goes quiet, and in the silence we hear the distant whoops of hyenas, feasting on the gift of entrails we left behind.
Johnny says, calmly: “I’ve already asked Isao to take the second watch tonight.”
Richard looks in surprise at Mr. Matsunaga. “Why him?”
“He knows his way around a rifle. I checked him out earlier.”
“I am the number one marksman in the Tokyo shooting club,” says
Mr. Matsunaga, smiling proudly. “What time do you wish me to stand watch?”
“I’ll wake you up at two, Isao,” says Johnny. “You’d best get to bed early.”
The rage in our tent is like a living thing, a monster with glowing eyes that waits to attack. I am the one in its sight, the victim in whom its claws will sink, and I keep my voice low and calm, hoping the claws will pass me by, that those eyes will burn themselves out. But Richard won’t let it die.
“What’s he been saying to you? What were you two talking about so lovingly?” he demands.
“What do you think we were talking about? How we can make it through this week alive.”
“So it was all about survival, was it?”
“Yes.”
“And Johnny’s so bloody good at it, we’re now stranded.”
“You blame him for this?”
“He’s proved to us he can’t be trusted. But of course you can’t see that.” He laughs. “There’s a term for it, you know. They call it khaki fever.”
“What?”
“It’s when women fall into lust for their bush guides. All it takes is the sight of a man wearing khaki, and they’ll spread their legs for him.”
It’s the crudest insult he could fling at me, yet I manage to remain calm because nothing he says can hurt me now. I simply don’t care. Instead I laugh. “You know, I’ve just realized something about you. You really are a bastard.”
“At least I’m not the one who wants to fuck the bush guide.”
“How do you know I haven’t already?”
He flings himself onto his side, turning his back to me. I know he wants to storm out of this tent as much as I do, but it’s not safe to even step outside. Anyway, we have nowhere else to go. All I can do is move as far away from him as I can and stay silent. I no longer know who this man is. Something has changed inside him, some transformation that happened while I wasn’t watching. The bush has done this. Africa has done this. Richard is now a stranger, or perhaps he was always a stranger. Can you ever really know a person? I once read about a wife who was married for a decade before she discovered her husband was a serial killer. How could she not know it? I thought when I read that article.
But now I do understand how it can happen. I’m lying in a tent with a man I’ve known for four years, a man I thought I loved, and I feel like the serial killer’s wife, the truth about her husband finally laid bare.
Outside our tent, there’s a thump, a crackle, and the fire flares brighter. Johnny has just added wood to the flames to keep the animals at bay. Did he hear us talking? Does he know this argument is about him? Perhaps he’s seen this happen countless times before on other safaris. Couples dissolving, accusations flying. Khaki fever. A phenomenon so common it’s earned a name of its own.
I close my eyes and an image appears in my mind. Johnny standing in the tall grass at dawn, his shoulders silhouetted by sunrise. Am I infected, just a little, by the fever? He is the one who protects us, who keeps us alive. At the moment he sighted the impala, I was standing right beside him, so close that I saw the muscles snap taut on his arm as he raised the rifle. Once again I feel the thrill of the explosion, as if I myself had pulled the trigger, I had brought down the impala. A shared kill, binding us with blood.
Oh yes, Africa has changed me, too.
I hold my breath as Johnny’s silhouette pauses outside our tent. Then he moves past and his shadow glides away. When I fall asleep, it’s not Richard I dream about, but Johnny, standing tall and straight in the grass. Johnny, who makes me feel safe.
Until the next morning, when I wake up to the news that Isao Matsunaga has vanished.
Eleven
Keiko kneels in the grass, sobbing softly as she rocks back and forth like a metronome ticking off a rhythm of despair. We’ve found the rifle, lying just beyond the bell-strung perimeter, but we have not yet found her husband. She knows what that means. We all know.
I stand over Keiko, uselessly stroking her shoulder because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve never been good at comforting people. After my father died, and my mother sat weeping in his hospital room, all I could do was rub her arm, rub, rub, rub, until she finally cried out: “Stop it, Millie! That’s so annoying!” I think Keiko is too distraught to even notice that I’m touching her. Looking down at her bowed head, I see white roots peeking through her black hair. With her pale, smooth skin, she seemed so much younger than her husband, but now I realize she’s not young at all. That a few months out here will reveal her true age as her black hair turns to silver, as her skin darkens and wrinkles in the sun. Already she seems to be shriveling before my eyes.
“I’m going to search by the river,” says Johnny, and he picks up the rifle. “All of you, stay here. Better yet, wait in the truck.”
“The truck?” Richard says. “You mean that piece of junk you can’t even start?”
“If you stay in the truck, nothing will hurt you. I can’t search for Isao and protect you at the same time.”
“Wait. Johnny,” I speak up. “Should you be out there by yourself?”
“He’s got the fucking gun, Millie,” Richard says. “We’ve got nothing.”
“While he’s hunting for tracks, someone needs to watch his back,” I point out.
Johnny gives a curt nod. “Okay, you’re my spotter, Millie. Stay close.”
As I step over the perimeter wire, my boot bumps the strand and the bells tinkle. Such a sweet ringing, like a wind chime on the breeze, but out here it means the enemy has invaded and my heart gives a reflexive kick of alarm at the sound. I take a deep breath and follow Johnny into the grass.
I was right to come with him. His attention is fixed on the ground as he searches for clues, and he could very well miss seeing the flick of a lion’s tail off in the underbrush. As we move forward I am constantly scanning behind us, all around us. The grass is tall, up to my hips, and I think of puff adders and how you might step on one and not know it until fangs sink into your leg.
“Here,” Johnny says quietly.
I look where the grass has been flattened and see a bare patch of soil and a scrape mark left by something being dragged across it. Johnny’s already moving again, following the trail of flattened grass.
“Did the hyenas take him?”
“Not hyenas. Not this time.”
“How do you know?”
He doesn’t answer, but keeps moving toward a grove of trees, which I’m now able to recognize as sycamore figs and jackal berries. Though I cannot see the river, I hear it rushing somewhere close by, and I think of crocodiles. Everywhere you look in this place, in the trees, in the river, in the grass, teeth are waiting to bite, and Johnny relies on me to spot them. Fear sharpens my senses and I’m aware of details I’ve never noticed before. The kiss of river-chilled wind against my cheek. The way freshly trampled grass smells like onions. I am looking, listening, smelling. We are a team, Johnny and I, and I won’t fail him.
Suddenly I sense the change in him. His soft intake of breath, his abrupt stillness. He is no longer focused on the ground, but has straightened to his full height, shoulders squared.
At first I do not see her. Then I follow the direction of his gaze, to the tree that looms before us. It is a towering sycamore fig, a majestic specimen with wide spreading branches and dense foliage, the kind of tree where you’d build a Swiss Family Robinson house.
“There you are,” whispers Johnny. “Such a pretty girl.”
Only then do I spot her, draped over a high branch. The leopard is almost invisible, so well does she blend into the leaf-dappled shade. All along she’s been observing us, waiting patiently as we drew near, and now she watches with keen intelligence, weighing her next move, just as Johnny weighs his. Lazily she flicks her tail, but Johnny stays perfectly motionless. He is doing exactly what he advised us to do. Let the cat see your face. Show it that your eyes are forward-facing, that you, too, are a predator.
A moment passes, a moment when I have never
felt so afraid or so alive. A moment when each heartbeat sends a sharp thrust of blood up my neck, whistling through my ears like wind. The leopard’s gaze stays on Johnny. He is still gripping the rifle in front of him. Why doesn’t he lift it to his shoulder? Why doesn’t he fire?
“Back away,” he whispers. “There’s nothing we can do for Isao.”
“You think the leopard killed him?”
“I know she did.” He lifts his head, a subtle gesture that I almost miss. “Upper branch. To the left.”
It has been hanging there the whole time, but I didn’t notice it. Just as I didn’t at first notice the leopard. The arm dangles free like the strange fruit of a sausage tree, the hand gnawed down to a fingerless knob. Foliage masks the rest of Isao’s body, but through the leaves I make out the shape of his torso, wedged in the crook of a branch, as if he’d dropped from the sky and landed like a broken doll in that tree.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “How are we going to get him—”
“Don’t. Move.”
The leopard has risen to a crouch, haunches tensed to spring. It’s me she’s staring at, her eyes fixed on mine. In an instant Johnny’s rifle is up and ready to fire, but he doesn’t pull the trigger.
“What are you waiting for?” I whisper.
“Back away. Together.”
We take a step back. Another. The leopard settles back onto her branch, tail flicking.
“She’s only protecting her kill,” he says. “That’s what leopards do, store their prey in a tree, where other scavengers can’t get it. Look at the muscles in her shoulders. In her neck. That’s real power for you. The power to drag a dead animal that outweighs her, all the way up to that high branch.”
“For God’s sake, Johnny. We need to get him down.”
“He’s already dead.”
“We can’t leave him up there.”
“We get any closer, she’ll spring on us. And I won’t kill a leopard just to retrieve a corpse.”
I remember what he once told us: that he would never kill a big cat. That he considered them sacred animals, too rare to sacrifice for any reason, not even to save his own life. Now he stands behind those words, even as Isao’s corpse dangles above us, and the leopard guards her meal. Johnny suddenly seems as strange a beast as any I’ve yet encountered in this wild place, a man whose respect for this land runs as deep as the roots of these trees. I think of Richard, with his metallic-blue BMW and his black leather jacket and aviator glasses, things that made him seem masculine to me when we first met. But they were only trappings, to adorn a mannequin. That’s what the word means, isn’t it? A model of the human body, not real. Until now, it seems that I have known only mannequins who look like men, pretend to be men, but are merely plastic. I will never find another man like Johnny, not in London, not anywhere, and that is a heartbreaking thing to realize. That I will search for the rest of my life, and will always look back to this moment, when I knew exactly which man I wanted.