That night after cold supper we went to bed early, since Mary had written her diary in the late afternoon, and lay in bed listening to the heaviness of the rain on that taut canvas.
But in spite of the steady noise of the rain I did not sleep well and I woke twice sweating with nightmares. The last one was a very bad one and I reached out under the mosquito net and felt for the water bottle and the square flask of gin. I brought it into the bed with me and then tucked the netting back under the blanket and the air mattress of the cot. In the dark I rolled my pillow up so I could lay back with my head against it and found the small balsam-needle pillow and put it under my neck. Then I felt for my pistol alongside my leg and for the electric torch and then unscrewed the top of the flask of gin.
In the dark with the heavy noise of the rain I took a swallow of the gin. It tasted clean and friendly and made me brave against the nightmare. The nightmare had been about as bad as they come and I have had some bad ones in my time. I knew I could not drink while we were hunting Miss Mary’s lion; but we would not be hunting him tomorrow in the wet. Tonight was a bad night for some reason. I had been spoiled by too many good nights and I had come to think that I did not have nightmares anymore. Well I knew now. Perhaps it was because the tent was so battened down against the rain that there was no proper ventilation. Perhaps it was because I had had no exercise all day.
I took another swallow of the gin and it tasted even better and more like the old Giant Killer. It had not been such an exceptional nightmare, I thought. I’ve had much worse than that. But what I knew was that I had been through with nightmares, the real ones that could drench you in sweat, for a long time and I had only had good or bad dreams and most of the night they were good dreams. Then I heard Mary say, “Papa are you drinking?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Could I have some too?”
I reached the flask over from under the net and she put her hand out and took it.
“Do you have the water?”
“Yes,” I said and reached it over too. “You have yours too by your bed.”
“But you told me to be careful about things and I did not want to wake you with the light.”
“Poor kitten. Haven’t you slept?”
“Yes. But I had the most awful dreams. Too bad to tell before breakfast.”
“I had some bad ones too.”
“Here’s the Jinny flask back,” she said. “In case you need it. Hold my hand tight, please. You aren’t dead and G.C. isn’t dead and Pop isn’t dead.”
“No. We’re all fine.”
“Thank you so much. And you sleep too. You don’t love anybody else do you? White I mean?”
“No. Not white nor black nor red all over.”
“Sleep well, my blessed,” she said. “Thank you for the lovely midnight drink.”
“Thank you for killing the nightmares.”
“That’s one of the things I’m for,” she said.
I lay and thought about that for a long time remembering many places and really bad times and I thought how wonderful it would be now after the rain and what were nightmares anyway and then I went to sleep and woke sweating again with the horrors but I listened carefully and heard Mary breathing softly and regularly and then I went back to sleep to try it once more.
5
IN THE MORNING IT was cold with heavy cloud over all the Mountain. There was a heavy wind again and the rain came in patches but the heavy solid rain was over. I went out to the lines to talk with Keiti and found him very cheerful. He was wearing a raincoat and an old felt hat. He said the weather would probably be good by the next day and I told him we would wait until Memsahib woke before driving in the tent pegs and loosening the wet ropes. He was pleased that the ditching had turned out so well and that neither the sleeping tent nor the mess tent had been wet. He had already sent for a fire to be built and everything was looking better. I told him I had a dream that it had rained heavily up in the Reserve. This was a lie but I thought it was good to weigh in with a good heavy lie in case we had good news from Pop. If you are going to prophesy it is good to prophesy with the odds in your favor.
Keiti heard my dream through with attention and with simulated respect. Then he told me that he had dreamed that it had rained heavily all the way to the Tana River, which was on the edge of the desert, and that six safaris were cut off and would not be able to move for weeks. This, as it was calculated to do, made a very small thing of my dream. I knew that my dream had been registered and would be checked on but I thought I ought to back it up. So I told him, quite truly, that I dreamed that we had hanged the Informer. Recounting this I gave him the exact procedure: where, how, why, how he had taken it and how we had taken him out, afterwards, in the hunting car to be eaten by the hyenas.
Keiti hated the Informer and had for many years and he loved this dream but was careful that I should know that he himself had not dreamed of the Informer at all. This was important, I knew, but I gave him some more details of the execution. He was delighted with them and he said wistfully, but in full judgment, “You must not do.”
“I cannot do. But maybe my dream will do.”
“You must not make uchawi.”
“I do not make uchawi. Have you ever seen me harm a man or a woman?”
“I did not say you were a mchawi. I said you must not be one and that it cannot be to hang the Informer.”
“If you wish to save him I can forget the dream.”
“Good dream,” Keiti said. “But make too much trouble.”
The day after a heavy rain is a splendid day for the propagation of religion while the time of the rain itself seems to turn men’s minds from the beauty of their faith. All rain had stopped now and I was sitting by the fire drinking tea and looking out over the sodden country. Miss Mary was still sleeping soundly because there was no sun to wake her. Mwindi came to the table by the fire with a fresh pot of hot tea and poured me a cup.
“Plenty rain,” he said. “Now finished.”
“Mwindi,” I said. “You know what the Mahdi said. ‘We see plainly in the laws of nature that rain comes down from the heavens in the time of need. The greenness and verdure of the earth depend upon heavenly rain. If it ceases for a time the water in the upper strata of the earth gradually dries up. Thus we see that there is an attraction between the heavenly and the earthly waters. Revelation stands in the same relation to human reason as heavenly water does to the earthly water.’ ”
“Too much rain for campi. Plenty good for Shamba,” Mwindi announced.
“ ‘As with the cessation of heavenly water earthly water begins gradually to dry up; so also is the case of the human reason which without the heavenly revelation loses its purity and strength.’ ”
“How I know that is Mahdi?” Mwindi said.
“Ask Charo.”
Mwindi grunted. He knew Charo was very devout but not a theologian.
“If hang Informer let police hang too,” Mwindi said. “Keiti ask me to say it.”
“That was only a dream.”
“Dream can be very strong. Can kill like bunduki.”
“I’ll tell Informer dream. Then it has no power.”
“Uchawi,” Mwindi said. “Uchawi kubwa sana.”
“Hapana uchawi.”
Mwindi broke it off and asked almost brusquely if I wanted more tea. He was looking away at the lines with his old Chinese profile and I saw what it was he wanted me to see. It was the Informer.
He had come wet and not happy. His style and his gallantry were not gone but they had been dampened. He coughed his cough at once so there would be no doubt of it and it was a legitimate cough.
“Good morning, brother. How have you and my lady endured the weather?”