Sundowner Ubunta (20 page)

Having done her bit, the woman looked at me with a baleful glare, obviously expecting me to take responsibility for driving the conversation from there on. She was tall, misshapen, maybe fifty, with an unsymmetrical face, uneven teeth, and a thick lower torso that made up the majority of her bulk.

“Did you have a good day?” I asked, not quite familiar with safari talk. Over the last few hours I’d come to realize that most of the guests at Mashatu were veteran safari-goers, many had visited Mashatu previously and all had been on safari at least once before, leaving me the evident novice.

“It was fine,” she commented dryly, slurring slightly. “We didn’t spot much. I might have stayed by the pool for all we saw. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. Who was your guide today?”

“Garry,” I told her.

She nodded and swallowed a healthy draft of scotch at the same time. “Garry is good; you’ll tend to see things with Garry. We had Joshua.” She made the motion of looking around for eavesdroppers, though I was sure she couldn’t have cared less if anyone overheard her (and probably’d have preferred it that way). “Not good, Joshua. Stay with Garry if you can. We had Garry our last two visits. Infinitely better, really.”

Every detective loves a gossip, and I had the feeling I’d lucked onto a good one. My drink arrived and I signaled to the barkeeper to pour the lady another couple fingers of scotch. He was about to pour, directly into her used glass, when she used a practiced, none-too-subtle finger wag to stop the pour and direct his attention to the back cabinet where sat a much more expensive bottle of Glenmorangie. The man looked at me and I quickly nodded. Sylvia’s baboon-butt-red lips spread across her face in thanks, and she laid a conspiratorial hand on my forearm, “Can’t stand that other rubbish, can you?”

Although I’d have bet my favourite wonderpants she’d been swilling the house brand before I’d come along, I nonetheless agreed vehemently. She smiled more. I smiled more. We understood one another.

“So you’ve been to Mashatu many times?” I asked her.

“Oh yes, getting to be a bore though, I must tell you,” she observed through a slurp of her refreshed drink. “And the food is ghastly. But it’s the elephants: I love the elephants, and there is no other place in Africa quite like Mashatu for elephants. They breed like rabbits here; not enough lion to control the population, thankfully.”

“Are there any other guides you would recommend? I hear good things about Matt.”

“Oh, my, yes, now there’s a good man, a good guide as well. Not bad to look at, either.”

I felt the hairs on my neck do a dance, the gin rose to my cheeks and the African warmth felt oh so pleasant on my skin. Finally! I had him. “Is he here tonight?” I asked lightly, trying not to betray my thrill.

“I’d like to meet him.”

She gave me a sharp look. “Not happy with Garry? He’s very good, you know.”

“He is,” I quickly agreed. “But seeing as it’s my first time, I thought I’d try a variety of guides.

Someone like Matt sounds good.”

“Russell!” a voice bellowed from somewhere behind me. It was Stuart, one of my Bostonian safari 89 of 170

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companions from that afternoon. “Good to see you!” he called from half way across the room. “Gawd it’s crowded in here. We can’t seem to get to the bar. Can you order us two mart…” He stopped there as he looked away and conferred with his wife, Gladdy. “Okay, just two quick chard…” More conferring.

“Okay, never mind. We’ll see you in there,” he hollered, nodding his head toward the closed bamboo-pole doors that separated the bar from the dining area.

I waved and nodded without, hopefully, committing myself to sitting with them during dinner. As soon as the crowd swallowed them up I returned my attention to Sylvia Dinswoody.

“As I say, you should stay with Garry,” she said to me as if there’d been no interruption. “Anyway, I’m afraid Matt is long gone.”

My stomach churned as if suddenly full of sour gruel. “Gone?”

“Haven’t seen him at all this year,” she told me, enunciating mightily with Scottish verve. “Maybe not last year either. Can’t quite recall the last time I saw him, actually.” As I stood there trying to take in this frustrating bit of information, Sylvia smirked, dipped her misshapen head and swivelled on her stool to face a guy who’d just pulled up to the bar on her opposite side.

“Sylvia Dinswoody, Scotland,” she announced to the man as she emptied her glass.

I guess I was boring her, or she wanted a refill, or both.

I excused myself as politely as I could-to the back of her head-and decided I had better fish to fry anyway: Jaegar had just arrived at The Gin Trap.

But frying fish did not come easy that night.

“Russell! Come join us for a drink!” one of the Australians called out to me from where the entire group of them were draped over one another-and a couple of other revellers I did not know-near the centre of the small lounge.

How had they managed to get so sloshed in the few minutes since we’d gotten back from safari? Sarah, the youngest of the bunch, managed to stumble closer and pulled on my sleeve, causing me to spill my drink on the head of a petite Asian woman passing by who shrieked at the sensation of G&T flattening her hairdo. I shrieked at the sensation of good G&T going to waste. The Australians began to laugh uproariously. I apologized to the woman while a uniformed server used paper napkins to dry off her head.

Once that was over, I scoured the crush of people, looking for Jaegar. Just then the bamboo dining room doors were thrown open and the bar was filled with tribal drumming, beckoning us into the boma, the dining area with its roof open to the sky. In the centre of the lala-palm enclosed area a blazing fire roared in a gigantic pit. The Gin Trap patrons poured into the enclosure like sand into the bottom half of an hourglass and I flowed along with them. As I moved with the crowd, I continued my desperate search for Jaegar, but he was nowhere to be found. Slippery bugger.

As promised, Garry knocked at my door at five-thirty the next morning and called my name until I called back with a groggy, “I’m up.” The morning drive was scheduled to begin at the ungodly time of six a.m.

Do people actually consider this a vacation? I needed a rest after less than twenty-four hours.

I rolled my lead-weight body out of bed even though my plans that day did not include a pre-sunrise safari. Garry was proving to be a dead-end source, as were my other safari vehicle companions, and since I’d confirmed last night that Matt had, at least at some point, worked at Mashatu, I needed to find a new source of information to move along my investigation. And I had an idea of where I’d find that source.

I joined the other guests and guides in the breakfast area on the covered terrace adjoining The Gin Trap 90 of 170

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where half-a-dozen long tables were set up across from a small buffet. The pre-safari snack consisted of fruit, tea, instant coffee and some hard, long biscuits that reminded me of biscotti. It was surprisingly chilly and most people had added a light nylon jacket or pullover to their safari wear. At six o’clock sharp, the guides and their charges trooped off for the Jeeps that awaited them at the front entrance of the camp.

I followed along until we were about halfway there, then when I was certain no one was looking, I took a detour. I’d scoped out the pathway the night before, and I was pretty sure it would lead me to where I wanted to go: the camp kitchen.

The path ended at a well-used door, dirty with the telltale marks of thousands of handprints, battered by sun and time. Where the doorknob had been was a round hole-good for air cir-culation-so I pushed on the door which moved inward with ease. I took a hesitant step inside the surprisingly cool enclosure and found what I’d expected: a small coterie of women in various stages of breakfast cleanup and preparation for the rest of that day’s meals.

“
Molo
,” I called out, feeling a bit foolish doing so, realizing that given the countless combinations of dialects and languages that seemed to abound in Africa I could have been spouting gibberish rather than saying hello. Fortunately, the women were used to dealing with idiotic tourists all day, every day, and they gave me big, gracious smiles and returned the greeting. Phew, step one complete. On to step two.

“Does anyone speak English?”

A chorus of “of course,” “yes sir,” “How can I help you?” rang out.

I approached the nearest woman and asked if she knew someone named Matthew Moxley, a man who had worked at Mashatu sometime during the last year or two.

“Oh yes, of course,” she told me, and the others noted their agreement with great enthusiasm. This was more like it. “What do you want with this man?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” I lied too easily. “We come from the same town in Canada.”

One of the gals let out a hearty guffaw and tried for it, “Sasacowchin?” They all began to chortle and in a shamble of voices attempted to pronounce Saskatoon or Saskatchewan, none of them getting it quite right.

“Yes,” I agreed, smiling my face off. “You remember him?”

“Of course. What do you want with this man?”

Persistent bunch.

“I’d like to find him. To say hello. He doesn’t know I’m in Africa. I want to surprise him.”

The ladies made various noises, tsk-ing sounds and oohs and ahhs and clicked their tongues as if considering the idea before one of them said in stilted words, “He no longer be working here.”

“He be a schoolteacher now,” another added.

“Somewhere in Botswana,” established another. “But not here.”

“I don’t know where. Do you know where?”

“I don’t know where. Do you know where?”

“I don’t, mama. You?”

“Me neither. And what about you?”

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“No, I do not.”

This chatter continued on for a quite some time, so long that I began to wonder if they even remembered I was there or what the original question had been, until finally: “But my sister knows.” Aha!

Finally something I could use.

“Does she now?” asked one of the others.

“Well, she does not know this directly of course, but she works with the boyfriend.”

“Kevan?” someone said. “He has a job at Chobe, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he gives massage to the white folks there.”

“That must be a hard job.”

“Yes, a hard job.”

“Hard on the hands.”

“Yes, hard on the hands.”

And on and on it went, without me.

Time was a-wasting and I wanted in. “Matt has a boyfriend named Kevan who works as a masseur at someplace called Chobe?” I summed up with a hopeful look on my face.

They looked at me as if wondering if I did not speak English, or perhaps had a hearing problem, or maybe wasn’t very bright.

“Of course. Didn’t we just say this?”

“We did, we did just say this.”

“Yes, we did.”

They were clucking like the hens in
Chicken Run
.

“Is Chobe near here?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh no, not Chobe.”

Groan. “How can I get there?”

Now they looked at one another as if I’d asked what was the best way to get to the moon.

“You best talk to Mr. Richard,” one of the women finally suggested.

“Yes, that is a very good idea, mama.”

“Yes, Mr. Richard, he would be the one to ask.”

“Yes, that seems to be the right thing to do.”

“Yes, it is.”

They all seemed to agree heartily on my next course of action. Richard Cassoum was the camp manager. He’d been in the greeting party when I first arrived in Mashatu the day before. I gave the 92 of 170

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women another smile and said something that sounded kind of like,
knee-a-bonga-mama
, which I hoped was thank you, ma’am. They responded with something that sounded like
knee-a-bonga-baba
, and off I went in search of Mr. Richard.

I found Richard Cassoum standing behind the front desk in the dim enclosure of the front entrance building, as if in wait for me, his tall, gawky body looking rather soldier-like. There was no one else around; even the camp curio shop across the way seemed abandoned.

“Hello,” he greeted me coolly with a sharp nod of his bald head.

“Richard.” He’d said we could call him that. “I’m wondering if you can tell me how I could arrange a trip to somewhere called Chobe. Do you know it?”

“Is there a problem with your stay here at Mashatu?” he inquired in a formal tone.

“Oh no, not at all, it’s just that I need to get to Chobe as soon as possible. Everything here has been terrific.” He didn’t seem convinced. “Really it has,” I added after a few seconds more.

“Why, may I ask, are you going to Chobe?”

None of your damn business I wanted to say, but instead settled for a more proper response that came out like this: “Personal business.” It was downright cold in the reception area and not all of it was due to the temperature. I guessed that not many people check out of Mashatu after just one night’s stay, and my unusual request wasn’t sitting well with the camp overseer.

“I see. Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Richard Cassoum informed me with clipped words. “There used to be a flight from Limpopo to Kasane, which is near Chobe, but there isn’t anymore. I’m afraid you’ll have to return to Johannesburg and make arrangements from there.”

He certainly was “afraid” a lot. “I see.” This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wondered if Roy the wonder-travel-agent could help me find a better option. “Well, could I use your telephone?”

“I think you’ve been told there are no telephones here for guest use.” His lips were stretched tight over smallish teeth and his brow was showing signs of stress furrowing.

“Yes, I understand that, but certainly in this case…”

“I’m afraid not.”

Afraid and not very helpful. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed Mr. Manager knew exactly why I was going to Chobe, and didn’t want me to get there. But nah, my suspicious nature was working overtime.

“Johannesburg is an easy five-hour drive from Mashatu,” Cassoum told me. “On a tarred road,” he commented like that would make a difference. “Perhaps you have a car?”