At first it had been difficult for Justin to explain his destination in any language. They might never have heard of Allia Bay. Allia Bay didn't interest them in the least. Old Mickie wanted to take him due southeast to Wolfgang's Oasis where he belonged, and the poisonous Abraham had hotly seconded the motion: the Oasis was where Wazungu stayed, it was the first hotel in the region, famous for its film stars and rock stars and millionaires, the Oasis without a doubt was where Justin was heading, whether he knew it or not. It was only when Justin drew a small photograph of Tessa from his wallet — a passport photograph, nothing that had been defiled by the newspapers — that the purpose of his mission became clear to them, and they became quiet and uneasy. So Justin wished to visit the place where Noah and the Mzungu woman were murdered? Abraham demanded.
Yes, please.
Was Justin then aware that many police and journalists had visited this place, that everything that could be found there had been found, also that Lodwar police and the Nairobi flying squad had separately and together decreed the place to be a forbidden area to tourists, sightseers, trophy-hunters and anybody else who had no business there? Abraham persisted.
Justin was not, but his intention remained the same, and he was prepared to pay generously to see it fulfilled.
Or that the place was well known to be haunted, and had been even before Noah and the Mzungu were murdered? — but with much less conviction, now that the financial side was settled.
Justin vowed he had no fear of ghosts.
At first in deference to the gloomy nature of their errand, the old man and his helper had adopted a melancholy pose, and it took all Tessa's determined good spirits to bounce them out of it. But as usual, with the help of a string of witty comments from the prow, she succeeded. The presence of other fishing boats farther up the sky was also a help. She called out to them — what have you caught? — and they called back to her — this many red fish, this many blue, this many rainbow. And so infectious was her enthusiasm that Justin soon persuaded Mickie and Abraham to put a line out themselves, which also had the effect of diverting their curiosity into more productive paths.
"You are all right, sir?" Mickie asked him, from quite close, peering like an old doctor into his eyes.
"I'm fine. Fine. Just fine."
"I think you have a fever, sir. Why don't you relax under the canopy and let me bring you some cold drink."
"Fine. We both will."
"Thank you, sir. I have to attend to the boat."
Justin sits under the canopy, using the ice from his glass to cool his neck and forehead while he rides with the motion of the boat. It is an odd company they have brought with them, he has to admit, but then Tessa is absolutely wanton when it comes to extending invitations, and really one just has to bite one's lip and double the number one first thought of. Good to see Porter here, and you too, Veronica, and your baby Rosie always a pleasure, no — no objections there. And Tessa always seems to get that bit more out of Rosie than anybody else can. But Bernard and Celly Pellegrin a total mistake, darling, and how absolutely typical of Bernard to include three rackets, not just one, in his beastly tennis kit. As for the Woodrows-honestly, it's time you overcame your laudable but misplaced conviction that even the most unpromising among us have hearts of gold, and you're the one to prove it to them. And for God's sake stop peeking at me as if you're about to make love to me at any moment. Sandy's going half crazy from looking down your shirtfront as it is.
"What is it?" Justin asked sharply.
At first he thought it was Mustafa. Gradually he realized that Mickie had taken a fistful of his shirt above his right shoulder blade and was shaking it to wake him.
"We've arrived, sir, on the eastern shore. We are close to the place where the tragedy happened."
"How far?"
"To walk, ten minutes, sir. We will accompany you."
"That's not necessary."
"It is most necessary, sir."
"Was fehlt dir?" Abraham asked, over Mickie's shoulder.
"Nichts. Nothing. I'm fine. You've both been very kind."
"Drink some more water, sir," Mickie said, holding a fresh glass to him.
They make quite a column, clambering over the slabs of lava rock here at the cradle of civilization, Justin has to admit. "Never realized there were so many civilized chaps around," he tells Tessa, doing his English bloody fool act, and Tessa laughs for him, that silent laugh she does when she smiles delightedly and shakes and generally does all the right things but no sound issues. Gloria leads the way, well, she would. With that royal British stride of hers and those elbows she can outmarch the lot of us. Pellegrin bitching, which is also normal. His wife Celly saying she can't take the heat, what's new? Rosie Coleridge on her dad's back, having a good sing in Tessa's honor — how on earth did we all fit into the boat?
Mickie had stopped, one hand held lightly on Justin's arm. Abraham was standing close behind him.
"This is the place where your wife passed away, sir," said Mickie softly.
But he need not have bothered because Justin knew exactly — even if he didn't know how Mickie had deduced that he was Tessa's husband, but perhaps Justin had informed him of this fact in his sleep. He had seen the place in photographs, in the gloom of the lower ground and in his dreams. Here ran what looked like a dried riverbed. Over there stood the sad little heap of stones erected by Ghita and her friends. Around it — but spreading in all directions, alas — lay the junk that was these days inseparable from any well-publicized event: discarded film cassettes and boxes, cigarette packets, plastic bottles and paper plates. Higher up — maybe thirty or so yards up the white rock slope — ran the dust road where the long-wheelbase safari truck had pulled alongside Tessa's jeep and shot its wheel off, sending the jeep careering down this same slope with Tessa's murderers in hot pursuit with their pangas and guns and whatever else they were carrying. And over there — Mickie was silently pointing them out with his gnarled old finger — were the blue smears of the Oasis four-track's paintwork left on the rock face as it slid into the gully. And the rock face, unlike the black volcanic rock surrounding it, was white as a gravestone. And perhaps the brown stains on it were indeed blood, as Mickie was suggesting. But when Justin examined them, he concluded they might as well be lichen. Otherwise he observed little of interest to the observant gardener, beyond yellow spear grass and a row of doum palms that as usual looked as though they had been planted by the municipality. A few euphorbia shrubs — well, naturally-making themselves a precarious living among chunks of black basalt. And a spectral white commiphora tree — when were they ever in leaf? — its spindly branches stretched to either side of it like the wings of a moth. He selected a basalt boulder and sat on it. He felt light-headed, but lucid. Mickie handed him a water bottle and Justin took a pull from it, screwed the top back on and set it at his feet.
"I'd like to be alone for a little while, Mickie," he said. "Why don't you and Abraham go and catch a fish and I'll call to you from the shore when I'm done?"
"We would prefer to wait for you with the boat, sir."
"Why not fish?"
"We would prefer to remain here with you. You have a fever."
"It's going now. Just a couple of hours." He looked at his watch. It was four in the afternoon. "When's dusk?"
"At seven o'clock, sir."
"Fine. Well, you can have me at dusk. If I need anything I'll call." And more firmly, "I want to be alone, Mickie. That's what I came here for."
"Yes sir."
He didn't hear them leave. For a while he heard no sounds at all, except for the odd popping of the lake, and the putter of an occasional fishing boat. He heard a jackal howl, and a lot of backchat from a family of vultures that had commandeered a doum palm down on the lakeside. And he heard Tessa telling him that if she had it all to do again, this was still where she would want to do her dying, in Africa, on her way to heading off a great injustice. He drank some water, stood up, stretched and wandered over to the paint marks because that was where he knew for a surety that he was close to her. It didn't take much working out. If he put his hands on the marks he was about eighteen inches from her, if you discounted the width of the car door. Or maybe twice that much if you imagined Arnold in between. He even managed to have a bit of a laugh with her because he'd always had the devil's own job persuading her to wear her seat belt. On potholed African roads, she had argued, with her usual stubbornness, you were better off hanging loose: at least you could weave and dodge around inside the car instead of being plonked like a sack of potatoes into every bloody crater. And from the paint marks he made his way to the bottom of the gully and, hands in pockets, stood beside the dried-up riverbed, staring back at the spot where the jeep had come to rest and imagining poor Arnold being hauled senseless from it, to be taken to his place of prolonged and terrible execution.