The group recoiled or else thrilled to the sight of blood, according to their makeup, but were all primed and eager for more.
“Gazelle gets away, life continues. Leopard gets gazelle, life continues,” Ali planed his hand evenly.
“Look, there’s another leopard, up in that tree,” someone called, as Ali brought the lorry to a halt.
We were stopped there beneath it for upward of half an hour, as the leopard slept through the hot afternoon, and the rest snapped endless pictures of the cat, and then pictures of themselves with the leopard in the background.
We spent two more days on the savannah like that, and every day was like the one before it. But Sylvie was happy, and what pleasure I had was in that.
The evening of the third day, as we headed back to camp for the night, the plain was heading to water and eat or else den down hungry. We stopped near a large mudhole, where the hippopotamus and okapi cooled themselves in herd, but suddenly all scattered amid a chaos of bleats and cries, as a dark rumble rolled low and powerful through the earth.
On the other side of the mudhole two colossal lions were circling one another, backing up toward the water. They were uninterested in prey. Off to the other side, a lioness in estrous watched them with supreme indifference.
The lions displayed their manes in turn, escalating the threat in stages until they filled the plains with echoing thunder, which terrified everything within hearing. Even at our distance, with the protection of the truck and guards, we feared being any nearer. The hair of their manes extended on end, until they were present in all their unbridled power and savage majesty.
One of them sprung an instant later, and it was clear, as they fought there, it was not for anything but the abundance of the future, which waited stoically for the hero of that contest, whichever of them it was. Even those in the truck were too awestruck by their battle to wager on it.
The titans rose and fought in the air on uplifted legs with gruesome ferocity, each clawing for the throat of his opponent, before crashing back to the earth, where they fought ever more violently in the dust. It was not long before one of them began to fade, the other to triumph over him. The vanquishing lion, sensing his victory, let loose a thunderous roar in the red evening sun, declaring his dominion over the plain and right to ride further on down time’s arrow.
When he roared next his foe did not respond, but began stealing away in defeat. The alpha would not let him part, though, until he had sealed his conquest with a coup de grâce, which he did in a swift brutal blow that left the other denatured. The hero went off with the lioness after that; the other, back into the dry savannah grass to die.
The others snapped away with their cameras, never taking them down from their faces the entire time. Sylvie was gripped between watching and turning away in distress.
“It’s horrific,” she said, her face twisted in pain. “We should not be seeing this.”
“It is the jungle,” I shrugged my hands. “It is what we are here to see.”
“Now I have seen it. I am ready to leave.”
Ali heard her, and turned the engine and headed back to camp, as the others still thrilled and cooed like pigeons at what they had seen.
“When the lion goes off with the lioness they make love three days. Thirty times every day, and do not eat,” Ali reported over the drumming motor.
“That is why they fought so hard,” the others joked, as they reviewed the footage they had shot.
“What will happen to the one who lost?”
“He will die. Or if he lives he will lose his mane, and it is a bad life for him after that.”
“That poor fellow,” said Effie. “Isn’t it awful, Edward?”
“I only hope,” Edward said, still looking behind us to the lion in the grass, “when he had them, he let them swing a bit from time to time.”
At camp there was a fire prepared, and the smell of roasting meat, which warmed against the oncoming chill. It was our last night at that station, so we were permitted showers to cleanse the red savannah dust, as the evening sun departed.
While Sylvie wrote in her journal, I returned to the campfire, where the others were already gathered, drinking the last of the cool beers, which Ali had put out.
“How did Ms. Sylvie like the big show?” Ali asked, coming over to where I was seated.
“She liked it fine, Ali.”
“What about you, sahib? You didn’t like it so hot?”
“It was something to see.”
“You cannot let the others bother you so much, boss. Just focus on the land. On the first day you see the green and golds. On the first night the moon and stars. On the second day you hear the birds and insects. On the third day you can see the difference between the types of plants and rocks. On the fourth day the insects no longer bother you. If you stay out here long enough and look the right way, you will eventually be able to see everything and how connected it is. The rest won’t bother you so much then.”
“Thanks, Ali.”
“You hear what happened in the north?” One of the Coalition cut us off, coming over to where we were.
“No?”
“They are all done for,” he said. “They sent in planes from Brussels, and those rebel boys have nowhere left to run.”
We gossiped until the beer was exhausted, and someone produced a bottle of the local spirit and passed it around the fire. The others added it to their chai, not knowing a bad bottle of the stuff could blind you.
We had dinner together sitting on dry logs, reliving the day’s adventure, until one of the Coalition produced a ukulele and started playing it, not too horribly, but he started trying to sing and had no voice. Sylvie and I slipped away after that, as they began to carry on under the stars.
From our tent in the trees we heard Effie sing a Gaelic dirge as we tried to sleep, and I thought less meanly of them for it, and was even happy for the music.
We remained awake deep into morning, whispering and laughing idly under the stars, until I shifted myself toward her beneath the covers.
“You still want to, after what we saw today?” Sylvie asked, moving away from me.
“I do,” I said.
“It was awful how he suffered,” she said.
“He got to lord over things awhile,” I replied. “It should not stop us from making love.”
“Maybe,” she allowed, as I cupped her breasts in my hands, “but only if we make love all the way.”
“I thought we always made love all the way.”
“That is not what I mean,” she answered, moving her body back toward mine.
Her voice in the darkness was clear and sultry, and I felt her pelvis move under mine, until I could feel each vertebrae.
“Come,” she said. “Make love to me all the way.”
“I will,” I told her.
“Until we make the world again?” she asked.
“No one can make the world again.”
“I feel divine tonight. Don’t you think it would be beautiful to make the world again?”
I thought how magnificent that would be. We made love and I told her we could try to make the world again. If we succeeded or even if we did not, it was beautiful and good to try. Again and again we tried.
33
We were spooled under the warm covers, still deep in the transparent hour of sleep, when the breakfast bell rang. We rose reluctantly into the morning chill, and climbed down to eat. We were moving up into the highlands that morning, which would entail a day’s travel, so there was a full breakfast of hen’s eggs, fried bacon, pineapples, blood fruit, sweet bananas, ugali, and bread toasted in the fire then slathered with raw cream butter.