She was unhappy, but she promised. He stood up. He was reluctant to go until she released him with some sign of forgiveness for everything.
A hornbill called in the garden. He had a thought. Lo had no idea that the one bird he could always identify was the hornbill. He remembered the first time he had heard it, years ago in Rwanda. He had stiffened at whatever he was doing, guiltily. He always heard the harsh, drawn-out aww as a cry of disapproval, probably maternal. “I think that’s a hornbill,” he said.
She looked up, pleased. He could go.
Walking home late that evening, Carl made himself contemplate trying to see Letsamao again. He had already spoken to Letsamao, once by phone and once in person, but both times he had been too gingerly. Whether to avoid seeming neurotic or to engage Letsamao’s chivalrous side, Carl had put it that it was mainly Lois who was suffering from the dogs. Both times, Letsamao had said the same things — that Carl’s wife was oversensitive and would in time adapt; that the dogs were not extreme, as shown by the fact that no one else was complaining; that among the numerous Europeans who had lived in Carl’s house previously there were none who had ever complained. Letsamao had as much as said that it was the business of a husband to manage a wife’s problems and to avoid intruding on the valuable time of a cabinet minister. Letsamao had reacted in no way to the suggestion that he might take his dogs in at night. It was as though the suggestion hadn’t even been made. Now Carl had a better and more moderate idea. It was that someone from among Letsamao’s retinue — that was the wrong word and unfair — be appointed to come out and quiet the dogs when they started up. This time when he spoke to Letsamao he would bring himself into it, confessing that he was the one primarily suffering. Letsamao had dominated their earlier conversations, pressing Carl to finish his business quickly. Their second conversation had been short and sharp. When nothing resulted from the exchanges, Carl had gone over twice more, at times when he knew Letsamao was at home, only to be told each time by the maid that the Minister was not to be disturbed. Trying to relay complaints through Letsamao’s domestics was a waste of time.
Letsamao was a rough customer he had a right to be afraid of. The Minister of Labor had oversight of all expatriates working in the country. Letsamao was a power in the ruling party. Moreover, he was a favorite of the AID mission director and the ambassador, largely because of a reputation as a strong administrator. Carl thought of the Batswana as an unusually agreeable people, so long as you remembered to greet them properly with dumela. Letsamao was atypical. He was permanently expressionless. He was short, thickly built, hard-looking. He was cicatriced, with three faint scars like cat scratches on each cheek. Carl had never seen Letsamao in casual dress.
He was approaching Letsamao’s house. The gates in the high front walls were ajar. Carl had a flash of irritation. Letsamao’s front yard, with its oblong of chive-green lawn, was beautifully landscaped and tended, but the backyard, which faced the front of Carl’s house through a wire fence, was a wasteland of bare earth, flailing laundry, children, dog life. Servant Theatre was what Elaine had called a similar scene they had lived with briefly, in Blantyre.
The coach lights on either side of the gate came on. That meant Letsamao was expected imminently. On impulse, Carl stopped. He would wait at the gate to intercept Letsamao. He had time. It would be pleasant. Because of the drought, mosquitoes were scarce. The first stars were out, twitching.
Letsamao’s silver Peugeot appeared at the bend in Sefhare Road, traveling briskly. Carl waved. The Peugeot swung toward the driveway. Carl stepped into the middle of the drive, one hand up, smiling hard. Letsamao stopped — more abruptly than he had to, Carl felt.
He went around to Letsamao’s window and tapped. Letsamao sat looking at him for a moment before lowering the window very slowly halfway. Carl noted that Letsamao was playing the clutch, keeping the car moving slightly forward. Carl was off balance. He did remember to begin with dumela, but then he rushed. There was too much to convey. He said he was getting sick. He used the word “insomnia,” which he had decided against using. When he said he thought it was time for an indaba, he could see Letsamao stiffen. Carl knew the term, meaning “powwow,” from reading the Rand Daily Mail. The term was Zulu and was supposed to be lingua franca all over southern Africa — but was it? Had he patronized Letsamao?
Letsamao cut him off in a voice that was high-pitched, almost strangulated. “Mr. Schmoll, dumela, you must not trouble me with this matter time and again! I must have my watchdogs. In fact, my dogs are giving you protection, if you can understand, because they are alert as to your place as well. So, really, you must leave this! Because really my dogs are watching over you, yet I must feed them. Mr. Schmoll, you must consider your position.” He drove on. Carl was now on Letsamao’s grounds. Two yardmen, anxious, ran up to usher him out. Letsamao’s last words had been spoken heavily, meaningfully.
It was dim in the police station. Why was it so damned dark in Africa, indoors, where people had to work? Carl thought of the artisan workshops in Mombasa — coffin-makers and metalsmiths laboring in cavelike slots lit by one light bulb or fluorescent tube. Maybe because people grew up in windowless rondavels, a little light seemed like a lot. The cost of electricity was probably nine-tenths of the explanation. Decent lighting would do wonders for productivity, he would bet. He ought to write something on it when this was over and he felt less half dead. There was such a thing as his career.
Carl sat down on a bench among silent Batswana. They were the poor. Some of them looked banged-up. There was no conversation. There was nothing to read. He decided that he had never seen a Motswana he would describe as nervous. The room was an oven.
An hour passed. The station commander would see him. Carl had already spoken to the charge officer, whose English was poor. Carl was hoping he had misunderstood the charge officer’s advice.
But the station commander only reiterated what the charge officer had said. There were no laws to protect Carl. The barking of watchdogs could never be seen as a nuisance under the law. There was nothing in the law to limit the number of animals a man could keep on his grounds. All Carl could do was slay these dogs when they set foot on his plot. He could shoot them. But the best was to lure them with meat, and poison them — taking care that the poison was given within his plot. And it would be best if the animals, once they were slain, could be found on his plot as well, although that was sometimes difficult and was not essential. The station commander recommended an arsenic compound available from a stockist near the railway station. Carl was assured that this was a thing commonly done.
The skirl of the hot comb ceased. Carl sampled the soup Lois had made for dinner. It was dawning on him that Lois — all her sympathy re the dogs to the contrary notwithstanding — felt deep down that his real problem was crabbéd age. The soup was a case in point. It was dense with powdered kelp or lecithin or some other additive she’d looked up in her health library. She was doctoring his soup because he was at the outer limits of what a human being could be expected to ingest in the form of pills. The soup had a medicinal tang. He would deny it. He served the soup. Lois came in, damp and pink, in her bathrobe. Her eyes looked a little red. His report of the police-station incident had obviously upset her. They sat down.