Mrs. Pollifax on Safari (8 page)

Abruptly Crispin called out to the boy at the wheel, gestured, and the launch headed across to the opposite bank, at which point Mrs. Pollifax lifted her camera and took a picture of the river ahead, managing to capture several profiles at the same time. She had already taken a snapshot of everyone climbing into the boat and no one seemed to have minded except Cyrus Reed, who had glanced at her reproachfully, as if he’d not expected this of her.

“Hippo,” said Crispin in a low voice, and pointed.

Every head turned to the left, the launch slowed and they coasted toward a cleft in the tangle of roots and trees that lined the riverbank. Slowly they drew abreast of a dark, secret-looking inlet of water that flowed into the river, and as they reached this narrow tributary Mrs. Pollifax looked deep into its shadows and saw enormous shapes moving through the trees, and suddenly heard a thunderous roar as the first hippo plunged into the stream. Patches of sunlight glinted across monstrous black heads as the hippos floated and bobbed out into the river. She counted five, six, seven hippos and gave up counting at eleven. They kept coming, whole families snorting and cavorting with ponderous mischievousness, one of the bolder ones swimming out near the launch to give them all a curious stare.

Mrs. Pollifax laughed, and when the launch resumed its trip upriver the others were smiling too and began to talk and move about the boat. McIntosh peeled off his jacket and came to stand next to Mrs. Pollifax, his camera at the ready. Without his jacket, only a short-sleeved
polo shirt remained and she thought it made him look rather flat-chested. His posture was not good but then, she thought forgivingly, it would be impossible for anyone to stand erect if they insisted on peering out at the world from under their eyebrows; a certain amount of slumping was compulsive. She noticed that his longish black hair badly needed a shampoo but the threads of white in it were dramatic against his tanned face.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said with his faint smile, and sat down on the edge of the bench next her, his eyes on the shoreline.

“Not at all,” she said. “That’s a handsome camera you have. I’ve been admiring it.”

He glanced at her, his smile deepening, and told her what kind it was.

“Lovely,” she said, not understanding a word, and then with a bright smile, “Where do you make, your home, Mr. McIntosh?”

“Pretty much out of my attaché case,” he said, smiling.

“But you’re American, aren’t you?”

“An American citizen, yes.”

“Then do you,” she asked reasonably, “live in the United States?”

“Not really,” he said, smiling. “I come and go.” He lifted his camera and snapped a picture of the riverbank, and then as Crispin called out “Egret!” he slipped away from her to the rear of the boat.

Behind her Amy Lovecraft leaned forward and said, “He’s impossible to talk to, isn’t he? I couldn’t even get a direct yes or no from him on whether he’s married. I mean, surely that’s something you could answer yes or no to? A man either has a wife or he hasn’t.”

Mrs. Pollifax turned to smile into her vivid sapphire-blue eyes. “You have a point there, although of course these days such matters are sometimes—”

“What’s more,” said Mrs. Lovecraft, lowering her voice, “I don’t think McIntosh is his last name at all.”

At this Mrs. Pollifax turned completely to face her. “Good heavens,” she murmured, “really?”

Mrs. Lovecraft nodded. “When we registered at Chunga,” she said, her voice becoming conspiratorial, “I was standing next him and I caught a glimpse of his passport. McIntosh is his
first
name. There was an entirely different name following it, something that began with an M too, but I couldn’t make it out. And,” she added indignantly, “I’ve never seen an American passport with the last name first. Julian may have accepted him as Mr. McIntosh because he doesn’t
know
, but take a look at your own passport sometime: the last name
doesn’t
come first.”

“Amy,” called Steeves from across the aisle, “you wanted to see some impala, take a look over here.”

Mrs. Lovecraft jumped up, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to digest this interesting piece of information.
Not
a sensible woman, thought Mrs. Pollifax, watching her leave; stupid of her to go about saying such things, indebted as Mrs. Pollifax was to her for the news. She might have thought it exposed McIntosh, but it also betrayed her spitefulness at being ignored by him. She wondered if Amy Lovecraft’s life had been difficult: she was a very attractive woman and must once have been lovely, but so very often beautiful women grew up lopsided or didn’t grow at all. She thought there was a curious hardness about her, as if her beauty was a deceptively rich topsoil, thinly spread
over rock.… Finding that no one was looking in her direction, Mrs. Pollifax reached into her purse and surreptitiously examined her passport. Mrs. Lovecraft was absolutely right: there was no juxtaposition of names, the given name came first.

“Having fun?” asked Cyrus Reed, walking up the aisle.

“Oh yes,” she said, beaming at him, and then, thinking of what Mrs. Lovecraft had just told her, she added, “and I’m learning so much, it’s really so educational.”

At midmorning they stopped briefly at an abandoned ferry crossing where the remains of a road cut like a knife through the tall grass. Crispin allowed them to climb out for a moment and walk a few cautious paces down the road. “But not far,” he said firmly. “Not without a guard.”

“Why should we need a guard?” protested Mrs. Pollifax.

“It’s dangerous.”

She looked out upon the peaceful scene, at bright petunia-like flowers blooming by the roadside, at a landscape empty of all movement, and she was incredulous. “But it looks so safe!”

Tom Henry grinned. “It does, doesn’t it? But we’re near the river, you know, which means if you left the road you might stumble across a crocodile sunning itself in the mud. Failing that, there are puff adders, pythons, black mambas and bushwangers, not to mention the possibility of a rhino or hippo who might be in an ugly temper.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Pollifax, taken aback.

Crispin said, “You treat many snake bites at your hospital, Doctor?”

“Maybe not so successfully as your village medicine men,” said Tom, “but we save a few. Speaking of medicine men, it’s certainly humbling to realize that people here evolved their own vaccine centuries before we did in the laboratories.”

Crispin said modestly, “We are in the position to learn, you know. We see the mongoose fight with a poisonous snake, he is bitten, he runs to a certain bush and eats the leaves and lives. The medicine man studies all these signs.”

Steeves said, “And which do you visit, Crispin, when you feel ill?”

Crispin grinned. “I would go first to the medical doctor,” he said, his eyes laughing, “and then I would visit the medicine man just to be sure.”

“Covering all your bets,” chuckled Dr. Henry as they climbed back into the boat.

Lisa, standing on the bank next to Mrs. Pollifax, said in a low voice, “Care to bet whose arms Mrs. Lovecraft is going to fall into?”

She had misjudged her, however; Amy Lovecraft graciously accepted Crispin’s hand, stepped onto the bow of the boat and remained there for a long moment, her profile turned to the sky, before allowing John Steeves to help her inside.

“What’s your deadliest snake?” Reed asked Crispin, which brought a laugh from Lisa.

“Oh the viper,” he said. “You are bitten, and in ten minutes you die.”

“Good heavens!”

“The black mamba is second, killing in ten or fifteen minutes. If you go to the zoo in Lusaka the snake man will tell you all about it. He will also tell you snakes neither see nor hear, they only sense vibrations.” He grinned. “Therefore if you meet a snake and stand perfectly still it won’t find you.”

“I couldn’t possibly stand still,” said Lisa, shivering. “I’d run like blazes.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked at Crispin, and then she looked at the dark, jungle-like banks of the river lined with twisted roots like claws, deep shadows, tangles of brush and palm and the white tracery of dead roots. She thought of the disciplines needed in this country to avoid sudden painful death and she acknowledged ruefully that survival here was a trifle different from crossing on the green light.

Some forty-five minutes later they reached Chunga camp again. They had seen an egret, a cormorant and a group of impala and hippos, and Julian was waiting on the dock to tell Mrs. Pollifax that a policeman from Lusaka had arrived to ask her questions.

“He arrived fifteen minutes ago,” Julian said, helping her out of the launch, “and I told him I will bring you to him. He’s seated over there in a chair behind the trees, very private.”

There was no curiosity in Julian’s candid gaze; in Mrs. Pollifax, however, there was considerable curiosity and she admitted to being startled. “You’re quite certain it’s me he wants to see?”

“Oh yes,” said Julian simply, “he has driven all the way from Lusaka to see you.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“Anything wrong?” asked Cyrus Reed.

Mrs. Pollifax realized that she had been the first person off the boat and now the others had arrived behind her and were listening. She smiled, shook her head and followed Julian to the appointed place, which was indeed private, being nearly encircled by palms. A slender young man in a dark-blue uniform rose. He looked self-contained and very polite, his black face thin and intelligent. “Mrs. Pollifax?”

She assured him that she was Mrs. Pollifax and sat down.

A small table had been placed in front of him on which rested a half-finished Coke and a notebook. He now placed the notebook on his lap and drew out a pen.

“I have come, madam,” he said, pronouncing the word m’domm, “to inquire about your advertisement in this morning’s
Times of Zambia.
A most curious advertisement, surely?”

“My adver—oh,” she said, comprehension dawning, “it’s been published today? I’m so glad. The young man said it would be, of course, but I’ve completely lost track of time, and—” She stopped, aware that her interrogator was waiting patiently for her to finish. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t break any law?”

He looked as if he were seated at a garden party balancing a cup of tea on his knees instead of a notebook but his eyes were very watchful. “This man John Sebastian Farrell.” He pronounced the name precisely and carefully. “You know this person?”

She nodded. “Yes, of course, or rather I used to. I’m trying to find him. You haven’t—haven’t come to tell me where he is, have you?”

“No, madam.”

“For that matter,” she added thoughtfully, “my name wasn’t mentioned in the advertisement at all.”

“The
Times
office gave me your name, madam, after which I contacted the tourist bureau to learn your itinerary. Now this man,” he continued, courteous but resolute. “What causes you to believe he is in Zambia?”

Mrs. Pollifax started to reply and then stopped, suddenly anxious. “Is there something wrong? I don’t understand—”

“If you will just answer—”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “A mutual friend told me that he’s living in Zambia and that he receives his mail in care of Barclay’s Bank in Lusaka. I looked first in the telephone directory, but since his name wasn’t listed I went to Barclay’s Bank, where they told me his mail is collected very seldom and they had no forwarding address for him. So I thought of advertising.” She paused, waiting, while he wrote this down. “Why?” she asked. “You surely haven’t driven all the way from Lusaka to—”

“May I ask the name of your friend?”

“Friend?” she repeated blankly. “You can’t possibly mean—”

“The mutual friend who told you this man lives in Zambia.”

This sounded serious indeed. She said after a moment’s hesitation, “Bishop. William Bishop.”

“His address, please?”

“
Bishop’s
address?” She was astonished but struggled gamely to remember where she sent Bishop’s Christmas card. “Georgetown, in the District of Columbia,” she
said at last. “The Laurel Apartments, I believe. In the United States.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“And now that I’ve told you all this,” she said firmly, “you will tell me, please, why it’s so important?”

He put down his pen and folded away his notebook. “You are aware, madam, that you register and show your passport everywhere you go, so that no one may enter this country illegally.”

“But I didn’t enter—” She stopped in dismay. “You mean Mr. Farrell may be in your country illegally?”

“I did not say that, madam,” he said politely. “I am checking into this matter.”

“I see,” she said, and then added accusingly, “Farrell is a very fine man, Lieutenant—”

“Lieutenant Bwanausi. Dunduzu Bwanausi.”

“Lieutenant Bwanausi,” she repeated bravely, and won a faint smile from him; in fact, he looked considerably friendlier as he rose from his chair. “That is quite possible, madam. We will see. I hope you enjoy your safari. Good day, madam.”

She watched him go, her face troubled as she thought of the long dusty trip he had made here from Lusaka, and the long dusty trip back; it certainly did not imply any casual interest in Farrell. She felt, too, that there was something that she had missed during the interview, something wrong about it that she couldn’t put her finger on. She sat and tried to reconstruct the interview.

A flock of tiny brilliant birds pecked at the earth around her. She heard the palms behind her stir once, convulsively, and then the sound of the launch starting up, followed by the steady putt-putt of its motor as it
backed and headed downriver to return Lieutenant Bwanausi to his car. The sun was growing intense on the back of her neck, the air was dead-calm with a complete absence of wind or breeze.

There was no breeze, she thought, and yet the palms had rattled stridently a moment or two ago, a fact that her mind had registered without her being aware of it. Very odd, she decided, and swiftly, soundlessly left her chair. The palms were silent now, and quite empty. She moved in among them listening to the sound made as her shoulders brushed against the brittle dry fronds. She tried tapping a single branch with her fingers to see if a small bird or animal could have rustled them, but she found this quite impossible; someone human had to have disturbed the palms to make the sound she’d heard, someone standing and listening to Lieutenant Bwanausi.