“There is something about the altitude or it being altitude on the equator. It’s the first place I’ve ever known where a drink of pure gin tastes like water. That’s really true and so there must be something about the altitude or something.”
“Sure there is something. But we who work hard and hunt on foot and sweat our liquor out and climb the damned escarpment and climb around this Mountain don’t have to worry about liquor. It goes out through the pores. Honey, you walk more going back and forth to the latrine than most of the women who come out here on safari walk in the whole of Africa.”
“Let’s not mention the latrine. It has a wonderful path to it now and it’s always stocked with the best reading matter. Have you ever finished that lion book yet?”
“No. I’m saving it for when you’re gone.”
“Don’t save too many things for when I’m gone.”
“That’s all I saved.”
“I hope it teaches you to be cautious and good.”
“I am anyway.”
“No you’re not. You and G.C. are fiends sometimes and you know it. When I think of you a good writer and a valuable man and my husband doing what you and G.C. do on those terrible night things.”
“We have to study the animals at night.”
“You don’t either. You just do devilish things to show off to each other.”
“I don’t think so really, kitten. We do things for fun. When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.”
“But you don’t have to do things that will kill you and pretend that the Land Rover is a horse and that you’re riding in the Grand National. Neither of you can ride well enough to ride at Aintree on that course.”
“That’s quite true and that’s why we’re reduced to the Land Rover. G.C. and I have the simple sports of the honest countryman.”
“You’re two of the most dishonest and dangerous countrymen I’ve ever known. I don’t even try to discipline you anymore because I know it’s hopeless.”
“Don’t talk bad about us just because you’re leaving us.”
“I wasn’t doing that. I was just horrified for a minute thinking about you two and what your ideas of fun are. Anyway, thank God G.C. isn’t here so you’d be alone together.”
“You just have a good time in Nairobi and get checked by the doctor and buy whatever you want and don’t worry about this Manyatta. It will be well run and orderly and nobody will take any unnecessary risks. I’ll run a nice clean joint while you’re gone and you’ll be proud.”
“Why don’t you write something so I’ll be really proud?”
“Maybe I’ll write something too. Who knows?”
“I don’t mind about your fiancée as long as you love me more. You do love me more don’t you?”
“I love you more and I’ll love you more still when you come back from town.”
“I wish you could come too.”
“I don’t. I hate Nairobi.”
“It’s all new to me and I like to learn about it and there are nice people too.”
“You go to it and have fun and come back.”
“Now I wish I didn’t have to go. But it will be fun flying with Willie and then I’ll have the fun of flying back and coming back to my big kitten and the fun of the presents. You’ll remember to get a leopard won’t you? You know you promised Bill you’d have a leopard before Christmas.”
“I won’t forget but I’d rather do it and not worry about it.”
“I just wanted to be sure you hadn’t forgotten.”
“I hadn’t forgotten. Also I’ll brush my teeth and remember to turn off the stars at night and put the hyena out.”
“Don’t make fun. I’m going away.”
“I know it and it isn’t funny at all.”
“But I’ll be back and I’ll have big surprises.”
“The biggest and best surprise is always when I see my kitten.”
“It’s even better when it’s in our own airplane. And I’ll have a wonderful and special surprise but it’s a secret.”
“I think you ought to go to bed, kitten, because even though we are winning now with the stuff you ought to rest well.”
“Carry me in to my bed the way I thought you would have to carry me when I thought I might start dying this morning.”
So I carried her in and she weighed just what a woman that you loved should weigh when you lifted her in your arms and she was neither too long nor too short and did not have the long dangling crane legs of the tall American beauties. She carried easily and well and she slid into the bed as smoothly as a well-launched ship comes down the ways.
“Isn’t bed a lovely place?”
“Bed is our Fatherland.”
“Who said that?”
“Me,” I said rather proudly. “It’s more impressive in German.”
“Isn’t it nice we don’t have to talk German?”
“Yes,” I said. “Especially since we can’t.”
“You were very impressive in German in Tanganyika and at Cortina.”
“I fake it. That’s why it sounds impressive.”
“I love you very much in English.”
“I love you too and you sleep well and you’ll have a good trip tomorrow. We’ll both sleep like good kittens and be so happy that you’re going to be all right.”
When Willie buzzed the camp we went out fast to where the wind sock hung dead against the skinned tree pole and watched his short delicate landing on the crushed flowers the lorry had flattened for him. We unloaded and loaded the hunting car and I ran through the mail and the cables while Mary and Willie talked in the front seat. I sorted Mary’s letters and mine and put the Mr. and Mrs. in Mary’s lot and opened the cables. There was nothing really bad and two were encouraging.
In the mess tent Mary had her mail at the table and Willie and I shared a bottle of beer while I opened the worst-looking letters. There was nothing that non-answering would not help.
“How’s the war, Willie?”
“We still hold Government House, I believe.”
“Torr’s?”
“Definitely in our hands.”
“The New Stanley?”
“The dark and bloody ground? I heard G.C. put a patrol of airline hostesses as far as the Grill. Chap named Jack Block seems to be holding it. Very gallant effort.”
“Who has the Game Department?”
“I shouldn’t like to say really. From the last gen I had it was rather nip and tuck.”
“I know Nip,” I said. “But who is this Tuck?”
“A new man I presume. I hear Miss Mary shot a beautiful great lion. Will we be taking him back, Miss Mary?”
“Of course, Willie.”
In the afternoon it stopped raining just as Willie said it would and after they had gone in the plane I was very lonesome. I had not wanted to go into the town and I knew how happy I would be alone with the people and the problems and with the country that I loved but I was lonely for Mary.
It was always lonely after rain but I was lucky to have the letters which had meant nothing when they came and I arranged them in an orderly manner again and put all the papers in order too. There were the East African Standard, the airmail editions of the Times and the Telegraph on their paper that was like thin onion skin, a Times Literary Supplement and an air-edition of Time. The letters opened fairly dull and made me glad I was in Africa.
One letter carefully forwarded by my publishers via airmail at considerable cost was from a woman in Iowa: