The Day of Creation (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) (19 page)

‘Nora – are they holding you here? We can leave on the
Salammbo
…’

She smiled at me, the same wan flicker of her pale lips that I had last seen in my trailer, when I had failed to rouse her. I heard the chain run through her hands.

‘You’re tired, doctor – you’ve come a long way, and it’s time for you to rest.’

‘Nora …’

I held the rifle across my chest, pressing the bolt against the sores on my breastbone in order to wake myself. Mrs Warrender was watching me in her composed way, as if I was a figment of a dream of men from which she had at last woken and was able to remember only by an effort of will. I knew now that it was myself who was these women’s prisoner, and that if I was to escape, let alone commandeer the vessel, this would be my only chance.

‘Let me help you …’ Mrs Warrender reached out and held the foresight in her small but strong hand. I was about to wrestle the rifle from her when I saw her two companions through the window grille. They stood side by side in the inflatable, rowing towards the
Diana
from the car ferry. Behind them, in the stern of the dinghy, reclined a small man with an olive face, one arm trailing in the flat water as if he were feeling the direction of the current.

‘Nora – it’s Mr Pal. He must have recovered …’

Before she could close the door, I pushed past into the corridor. I heard her feet behind me as I climbed the companionway.

‘Dr Mallory … it’s your rest time, doctor.’

I stood in the centre of the dance floor, on the planks of hot bone that stung my feet, under the awning of flayed skin. I held the unloaded rifle to my chest, and watched the dinghy approach. Across the pus-like surface of the lagoon the trailing hand of the botanist drew a long palm line that returned to the
Salammbo
.

Already I could see that Mr Pal was dead, and that the two oarswomen were about to bury him. They rowed towards the bows of the
Diana
, as Mrs Warrender and Fanny stood beside me. The sun’s reflection lay on the water behind them, and the intense light pressed against their backs and the top of Mr Pal’s head, as if they were returning from the future with the body of the last man, removing the remains of an extinct species from their world and taking it back for burial in the past.

25

Later, while the women settled Mr Pal into the papyrus grass on the western bank of the lagoon, I sat with Mrs Warrender among the salvaged lanterns.

‘I’ll want to leave soon,’ I told her as she polished the cheap glass. ‘An hour after sunset, if I can start the engine.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘Yes – Kagwa’s forces may be here tomorrow. I advise you to leave, Nora. Harare’s men are all over the place.’

‘We’ve seen one or two of them. They haven’t given us any trouble.’

‘That surprises me. All the rifles and webbing – where did you find them?’

‘On the way from Port-la-Nouvelle.’ She stared at the burial party at work in the long grass. ‘They … weren’t needed any more. I think you should rest here. Perhaps we can find someone to take you back to Lake Kotto.’

‘No – I have to head up-river. I’ll take Noon with me.’

‘She can’t possibly travel. Besides, are you safe with her?’

‘She’s the only person with whom I am safe. But for Noon I’d never have come so far. She knows the river like … the inside of a dream.’

‘She’s tricking you, doctor. She’ll stay with us. You’ve already killed two people – left to yourself, you’ll kill several more.’

I ignored this, and watched the two women who had buried Mr Pal walking through the papyrus grass to their rubber dinghy. After a few steps they ducked down, hearing something in the maze of waterways. In the cages beside the dance floor the macaques were picking at the bars in an agitated way. I stood at the rail and listened for any sounds of Kagwa’s helicopter, but the source of the noise seemed nearer to hand. As one of the women parted the papyrus grass the other raised her rifle. After a pause they stepped into the dinghy and rowed themselves towards the mouth of a narrow channel between the walls of grass. Behind them they left eddies of rotting vegetation. Already the water in the lagoon was becoming stagnant.

I pointed to the milky surface, and to the dead weeds that cloaked the stern anchor.

‘Has the Mallory stopped flowing?’

‘The Mallory?’ Mrs Warrender repeated the name, as if it described some obscure disease. ‘Do you mean the river?’

‘My river.’

‘The river you’ve named after yourself, and which you want to destroy.’

‘It attacked my dry wells … in fact, I want to find its source. It’s a private matter between myself and the Mallory. Sanger understands that.’

‘A private matter? This river can irrigate the Southern Sahara, and create a nature reserve ten times larger than the Serengeti. How can you claim that it belongs to you?’

‘Because I created it. In a real sense, I am the Mallory.’

Humouring me, she buffed her lantern. ‘You are the river? The dead snakes and the mud and the rotting fish?’

‘All those – and its dream of life.’

‘And when you reach its source?’

‘That depends on what I find.’

Perhaps you’ll drown yourself there?’

‘Drown myself? So the entire voyage is a suicide attempt? There must be more than that. I don’t know …’

‘Perhaps Noon knows?’

Before I could reply, the sound of a rifle shot reached the
Diana
, its report muffled by the dense papyrus grass. Mrs Warrender’s pale face swayed among her lanterns. She picked at her lips, watching the creek into which the two women had rowed the dinghy. Behind me Fanny stood by the rail of the dance floor, eyes searching the walls of grass. She and Nora shared the same nervous but expectant look, as if a prize turkey was about to be brought home for the pot. I resented the idea that they should shoot the birds, those creatures who drank from the body of the river, from the waterway that had once flowed from my own bloodstream. Even Noon and I, however hungry, had not eaten the birds.

‘Harare’s patrols will hear you,’ I warned Mrs Warrender. ‘There are stragglers all over these lagoons. I’ll captain the
Diana
for you.’

‘Captain …? The
Diana
has no captain. We take turns here, doctor. The sort of cooperation that rouses all your suspicions …’

‘You’ll rouse Harare’s suspicions. What are you doing this far from Lake Kotto?’

‘Like you, we’re looking for the source of the … Mallory. A great river like this draws men to it.’

She stared at the yellowing waters. Had she worn the shabby bath-robe during her rape by Harare’s men? Like her cropped hair, it was meant to serve as a constant reminder, as harsh as a police photograph, of the crime committed against herself.

‘Nora, I understand … you want to revenge yourself on Harare.’

‘Not only Harare.’ She polished her lantern. ‘There’s talk of a barrage, of a wall of water held back by some kind of restraint.’

‘A barrage?’ I rejected the idea, unable even to consider it. ‘There can’t be a barrage.’

‘Why not?’

‘It would be like applying a tourniquet – to my own arm. It would become gangrenous.’

‘So you really are the river?’

‘Of course. I’m sure of it now.’

She put away the lanterns, regarding me with a first show of sympathy.

‘You’re clearly quite mad.’

For six days I remained a prisoner on board the widows’ ship, locked into my cabin under the bordello ceiling. More undernourished than I had realized, I lay for hours on the mildewed mattress. Each evening my fever returned, as I listened to the roaring of the frogs in the dusk. By morning I would be too tired to do more than sit in a restaurant chair at the edge of the dance floor. In the afternoon the women would allow me to feed the animals in their cages, but I was still too weary even to think of seizing control of the
Diana
.

Noon and Sanger lay in their cubicles. They and I seemed overcome by a deepening lassitude, as if we were affected by my failure of will, a weakening of the imaginative force which had created the Mallory.

Talking to the macaques, I wondered why the five women chose to remain in this stagnant lagoon, away from the main channel of the river. For all the apparent amity of their new order, their greatest pleasure clearly came from the hunt. Every afternoon I was forced to listen to the unpleasant sounds of their wildfowling. Two of them would go off in the rubber dinghy, standing shoulder to shoulder with a rifle in the stern, and disappear through the papyrus grass into the hundreds of creeks that connected the lagoons. An hour later, I would be woken from my fever by a single shot that marked the end of another marsh bird.

However, they never brought their prey back to the
Diana
. In my fever I guessed that they hated the birds because they drank from the waters of the Mallory. To the macaques I confided: ‘They’re shooting the birds again … they’re still trying to clip my wings …’

Nonetheless, I was determined to resume my voyage. Watched by Fanny or Louise, I was allowed to see Noon for a few minutes each day, as she gazed at her nightclub sky. I counted her stronger pulse, and noted her clearer eyes and healing gums, again aware that it was she who was assessing me. She watched me as I felt her liver and tapped her chest, clearly measuring my recovery by the degree to which she excited me.

Realizing this, the women kept Noon from me during the few hours when she was allowed on deck. She was penned behind the galley door, kneading the sorghum cakes and picking the snails from their shells for our evening meal.

On the sixth afternoon, the first to leave me free of fever, I was feeding the macaques when the muffled report of a rifle shot sounded from the papyrus islands to the west of the lagoon. Somewhere in the maze of waterways a flicker of movement crossed the palisades of grass, as if a wounded bird was skittering through the tall blades.

I climbed from the starboard rail on to the marmosets’ cage and from there stepped out on to the roof of the restaurant. Around me the endless steaming creeks of this riverine world lay under the sun. Through the yellow haze I could see the distant channel of the Mallory half a mile to the east, the mist like vapour over a tepid vat. Not a single wave or swell crossed the surface, as opaque as amber wax. The immense volume of water was now stationary, the river waiting for me to act. The turning of some kind of inner tide was about to take place, reflecting a choice being made within my mind.

A quarter of a mile to the west, beyond the bank of the lagoon, a line of reeds had collapsed into the water and exposed a section of the levee. Along this narrow causeway a man came running, his head bowed as he tried to hide himself from his pursuers. He carried a fishing spear in one hand, and a rifle slung across his back. Whenever he ducked, the rifle stock rose above his head like the tail of a wounded bird.

Unaware of the
Diana
, the soldier drew nearer. His ragged uniform and webbing were tied together with string, and I recognized one of Harare’s guerillas. Perhaps he had defected, hoping to return to his village, or was the last survivor of a unit attacked from the air by Captain Kagwa’s helicopter. Although I had identified him, in some confused way I believed that he was bringing a message to me from the source of the Mallory, telling me what 1 should do to restart the silent river.

Without thinking, I lifted my arms above my shoulders and began to wave. Seeing me, and my empty hands against the sky, the soldier stopped and raised his head. He parted the grass, and was peering cautiously at the superstructure of the
Diana
when a second shot rang out.

The report echoed across the lagoon, taking with it the life of this starving soldier. When I raised my eyes I could see that nothing now moved along the causeway. The wildfowlers had secured their prey and would deal with him at their leisure.

An hour later Mrs Warrender and Poupee emerged from the creek. They had been sweating in the heat, but their faces were composed and emptied of emotion. Standing side by side, they pushed on their oars as the tall reeds opened and fell back around their shoulders.

With Louise and the younger woman, I watched from the rail as they docked the dinghy beside the gangway. In its stern were the rifle and tattered webbing, and a spade whose polished blade shone in the sunlight like a sword.

I climbed down from the cages and stood on the floor in front of Mrs Warrender, like a shy suitor about to ask her for a dance.

‘Good hunting, Nora?’

‘Not too good, doctor.’ She drew the dressing-gown around her shoulders in a brusque and rigid movement, reminding me of her eerie calm in the months after her husband’s death. ‘We were unlucky today.’

‘I didn’t know there was anything to shoot at around here.’

‘There isn’t very much. But if you wait something usually comes along.’

‘I can see you found another rifle.’

‘There was a dead soldier on the embankment. Only a few hundred yards from here.’

‘Poor fellow. He was probably going home to his village. Perhaps I could have helped him?’

‘No – he was quite dead.’

‘Too bad. Anyway, you’ll find better use for his rifle.’

‘I think we will. We buried him under the bank. Your river will bathe his bones, doctor.’

‘Have you buried many dead soldiers here?’

‘Not very many. Though we do seem to find one nearly every day.’

‘I’d noticed that – so many rifles, and so much ammunition.’

‘And so many dead soldiers to bury. Perhaps you could help us, doctor. There’s another dead man who needs to be buried …’

‘Well …’ I followed her eye to the dinghy. As it drifted from the gangway on its mooring line I noticed that the spade was still lying in the stern. A crescent of damp earth lay against the bright steel like the first instalment of another grave.

Mrs Warrender had picked up her rifle, and was smiling at me in an open and full-lipped way for the first time since I had known her. Despite the shabby robe and her cropped hair, she looked as happy as she must have done on her wedding day. I hesitated in the centre of the dance floor, aware that the women had formed a circle around me. Fanny had left the galley and leaned forward with her elbows on the bar, watching me with a not unsympathetic gaze. Only Noon, who had appeared behind the galley door, stared at me with an expression of anger, eyebrows knitted together in warning.

‘We’ll go, doctor.’ Mrs Warrender placed her hand on my arm, and I noticed the metal polish under her chipped nails, like those of a tired housewife. ‘That body should be buried.’

‘Digging a grave … I’m not strong enough.’

‘You are, doctor. A shallow grave. Come now …’

‘Well, perhaps a shallow one … my hands are—’

Preparing my palms for the labour to come, I rubbed them against my hips. An open wound stung against my hand. Looking down, I realized for the first time that I was naked. After carrying me aboard the
Diana
, the women had stripped me of the pus-stained rags that I had worn on the ferry. During the previous days it had never once occurred to me that I was naked, even in the presence of these women. By refusing to see me as a man, they had effectively castrated me.

Trying to rally myself, I looked past the circle of women at the lagoon beyond, at the silent walls of grass. Death hid among the tall palisades, gateways into a labyrinth that ended at the door of a grave. The sunlight pressed upon the stagnant water, preventing it from coming to my help. From the deck of the dance floor rose an intense white light, like the glare from a lamp filled with lime. It blanched the coloured glass of the lanterns behind me, and turned the exposed engine of the
Diana
into a calcified skeleton. I massaged my diaphragm, forcing the blood into my head, but the light intensified, and seemed to dress these women in their shrouds, as if they were mourners who had arrived early at a funeral. All the anger of these women irradiated this ancient vessel, infecting the bones of its decks and timbers, which now gave off a withering light of their own.

A lantern fell to the deck among the restaurant tables. Startled by the breaking glass, the women looked down at the ruby fragments, whose cheap vitreous glimmer seemed to break a spell. The deck shifted below their feet, as if the bed of the lagoon was stirring through the surface.