There are always mystical countries that are a part of one’s childhood. Those we remember and visit sometimes when we are asleep and dreaming. They are as lovely at night as they were when we were children. If you ever go back to see them they are not there. But they are as fine in the night as they ever were if you have the luck to dream of them.
In Africa when we lived on the small plain in the shade of the big thorn trees near the river at the edge of the swamp at the foot of the great mountain we had such countries. We were no longer, technically, children although in many ways I am quite sure that we were. Childish has become a term of contempt.
“Don’t be childish, darling.”
“I hope to Christ I am. Don’t be childish yourself.”
It is possible to be grateful that no one that you would willingly associate with would say, “Be mature. Be well-balanced, be well-adjusted.”
Africa, being as old as it is, makes all people except the professional invaders and spoilers into children. No one says to anyone in Africa, “Why don’t you grow up?” All men and animals acquire a year more of age each year and some acquire a year more of knowledge. The animals that die the soonest learn the fastest. A young gazelle is mature, well-balanced and well-adjusted at the age of two years. He is well-balanced and well-adjusted at the age of four weeks. Men know that they are children in relation to the country and, as in armies, seniority and senility ride close together. But to have the heart of a child is not a disgrace. It is an honor. A man must comport himself as a man. He must fight always preferably and soundly with the odds in his favor but on necessity against any sort of odds and with no thought of the outcome. He should follow his tribal laws and customs insofar as he can and accept the tribal discipline when he cannot. But it is never a reproach that he has kept a child’s heart, a child’s honesty and a child’s freshness and nobility.
No one knew why Mary needed to kill a gerenuk. They were a strange long-necked gazelle and the bucks had heavy short curved horns set far forward on their heads. They were excellent to eat in this particular country. But Tommy and impala were better to eat. The boys thought that it had something to do with Mary’s religion.
Everyone understood why Mary must kill her lion. It was hard for some of the elders who had been on many hundreds of safaris to understand why she must kill it in the old straight way. But all of the bad element were sure it had something to do with her religion like the necessity to kill the gerenuk at approximately high noon. It evidently meant nothing to Miss Mary to kill the gerenuk in an ordinary and simple way.
At the end of the morning’s hunt, or patrol, the gerenuk would be in the thick bush. If we sighted any by unlucky chance Mary and Charo would get out of the car and make their stalk. The gerenuk would sneak, run or bound away. Ngui and I would follow the two stalkers from duty and our presence would ensure the gerenuk would keep on moving. Finally it would be too hot to keep on moving the gerenuk about and Charo and Mary would come back to the car. As far as I know no shot was ever fired in this type of gerenuk hunting.
“Damn those gerenuk,” Mary said. “I saw the buck looking directly at me. But all I could see was his face and his horns. Then he was behind another bush and I couldn’t tell he was not a doe. Then he kept moving off out of sight. I could have shot him but I might have wounded him.”
“You’ll get him another day. I thought you hunted him very well.”
“If you and your friend didn’t have to come.”
“We have to, honey.”
“I’m sick of it. Now I suppose you all want to go to the Shamba.”
“No. I think we’ll cut straight home to camp and have a cool drink.”
“I don’t know why I like this crazy part of the country,” she said. “I don’t have anything against the gerenuk either.”
“It’s sort of an island of desert here. It’s like the big desert we have to cross to get here. Any desert is fine.”
“I wish I could shoot well and fast and as quick as I see to shoot. I wish I wasn’t short. I couldn’t see the lion that time when you could see him and everybody else could see him.”
“He was in an awful place.”
“I know where he was and it wasn’t so far from here either.”
“No,” I said and to the driver, “Kwenda na campi.”
“Thank you for not going to the Shamba,” Mary said. “You’re good about the Shamba sometimes.”
“You’re who is good about it.”
“No, I’m not. I like you to go there and I like you to learn everything you should learn.”
“I’m not going there now until they send for me about something.”
“They’ll send for you all right,” she said. “Don’t worry about that.”