“God knows what really went on,” G.C. said. He was very happy and not at all taut tonight and Mary with her wonderful memory for forgetting was happy too and without any problems. She could forget in the loveliest and most complete way of anyone I ever knew. She could carry a fight overnight but at the end of a week she could forget it completely and truly. She had a built-in selective memory and it was not built entirely in her favor. She forgave herself in her memory and she forgave you too. She was a very strange girl and I loved her very much. She had, at the moment, only two defects. She was very short for honest lion hunting and she had too good a heart to be a killer and that, I had finally decided, made her either flinch or squeeze off a little when shooting at an animal. I found this attractive and was never exasperated by it. But she was exasperated by it because, in her head, she understood why we killed and the necessity for it and she had come to take pleasure in it, after thinking that she never would kill an animal as beautiful as an impala and would only kill ugly and dangerous beasts. In six months of daily hunting she had learned to love it, shameful though it is basically and unshameful as it is if done cleanly, but there was something too good in her that worked subconsciously and made her pull off the target. I loved her for it in the same way that I could not love a woman who could work in the stockyards or put dogs or cats out of their suffering or destroy horses who had broken their legs at a race course.
“What was the trooper’s name,” G.C. asked. “Albertine?”
“No. Monsieur.”
“He’s baffling us, Miss Mary,” G.C. said.
They went on talking about London. So I started to think about London too and it was not unpleasant although much too noisy and not normal. I realized I knew nothing about London and so I started to think about Paris and in greater detail than before. Actually I was worried about Mary’s lion and so was G.C. and we were just handling it in different ways. It was always easy enough when it really happened. But Mary’s lion had been going on for a long time and I wanted to get him the hell over with.
Finally, when the different dudus, which was the generic name for all bugs, beetles and insects, were thick enough on the dining tent floor so that they made a light crunching when you walked we went to bed.
“Don’t worry about the morrow,” I said to G.C. as he went off to his tent.
“Come here a moment,” he said. We were standing halfway to his tent and Mary had gone into ours. “Where did she aim at that unfortunate wildebeest?”
“Didn’t she tell you?”
“No.”
“Go to sleep,” I said. “We don’t come in until the second act anyway.”
“You couldn’t do the old husband and wife thing?”
“No. Charo’s been begging me to do that for a month.”
“She’s awfully admirable,” G.C. said. “You’re even faintly admirable.”
“Just a lot of admirals.”
“Good night, Admiral.”
“Put a telescope to my blind eye and kiss my ass, Hardy.”
“You’re confusing the line of battle.”
Just then the lion roared. G.C. and I shook hands.
“He probably heard you misquoting Nelson,” G.C. said.
“He got tired of hearing you and Mary talk about London.”
“He is in good voice,” G.C. said. “Go to bed, Admiral, and get some sleep.”
In the night I heard the lion roar several more times. Then I went to sleep and Mwindi was pulling on the blanket at the foot of the cot.
“Chai, Bwana.”
It was very dark outside but someone was building up the fire. I woke Mary with her tea but she did not feel well. She felt ill and had bad cramps.
“Do you want to cancel it, honey?”
“No. I just feel awful. After the tea maybe I’ll be better.”
“We can wash it. It might be better to give him another day’s rest.”
“No. I want to go. But just let me try and feel better if I can.”
I went out and washed in the cold water in the basin and washed my eyes with boric, dressed and went out to the fire. I could see G.C. shaving in front of his tent. He finished, dressed and came over.
“Mary feels rocky,” I told him.
“Poor child.”
“She wants to go anyway.”
“Naturally.”
“How’d you sleep?”
“Well. You?”
“Very well. What do you think he was doing last night?”
“I think he was just going walkabout. And sounding off.”
“He talks a lot. Want to split a bottle of beer?”
“It won’t hurt us.”
I went and got the beer and two glasses and waited for Mary. She came out of the tent and walked down the path to the latrine tent. She came back and walked down again.
“How do you feel, honey?” I asked when she came over to the table by the fire with her tea. Charo and Ngui were getting the guns and the binoculars and shell bags out from under the tents and taking them to the hunting car.
“I don’t feel good at all. Do we have anything for it?”
“Yes. But it makes you feel dopey. We’ve got Terramycin too. It’s supposed to be good for both kinds but it can make you feel funny too.”
“Why did I have to get something when my lion’s here?”
“Don’t you worry, Miss Mary,” G.C. said. “We’ll get you fit and the lion will get confident.”