As a hypnotist the magician had the sense of timing that he lacked so conspicuously when performing tricks, and before the laughter stopped he had said something curtly to the assistant, and the man went over to the bar counter and picking up an empty glass jug that stood there, drank it off in deep, gasping gulps as if he had been wandering for days in a desert. He was returned to his inanimate self by one movement of the magician’s hands before his face; he looked at us all without surprise and then, finding himself the focus of an attention that did not even arouse him to any curiosity, sat down in his chair again and yawned.
‘Let’s see what he can do with someone else, not his own man!’ one of the Belgians called out good-humouredly, signaling for the barman at the same time. ‘Yes, come on, someone else.’ ‘Ask him to try someone he doesn’t know.’
‘You want it, yes?’ George was grinning. He pointed a finger at the magician.
‘You, George, let’s see if he can do you!’
‘No, one of us.’ A shiny, tubby-faced man in cocoa research, who had towards the blacks the chaffing, half-scornful ease of one of those who knew them well, swung round in his chair. ‘That’s an idea, eh? Let him have a go at one of us, and see how he gets on.’ ‘Yes, yes.’ There was a positive chorus of rising assent; even the honeymooners joined in. Someone said, ‘But what about the language? How can he suggest things in our minds if we don’t know the same language?’- but she was dismissed, and George explained to the magician what was wanted.
He made no protest; in a swift movement he walked away towards the bar a few steps and then turned to face us, at bay. I noticed that his nostrils- he had a fine nose- moved in and out once or twice as if he were taking slow deep breaths.
We were waiting, I suppose, for him to call upon one of us, one of the men, of course- the cocoa man and some others were ready for the right moment, a rough equivalent of the familiar: Will any kind gentleman or lady please step up on to the stage? But oddly it did not come. Over the giggles and nudges and half-sentences, an expectancy fell. We sat looking at the awkward young black man, searching slowly along our faces, and we did not know when the performance had begun. Fidgeting died out, looking at him, and our eyes surrounded him closely. He was still as any prey run to ground. And then while we were looking at him, waiting for him to choose one of us, we became aware of a sudden smooth movement in our ranks. My attention was distracted to the right, and I saw the girl- the honeymoon girl, my girl with the face- get up with a little exclamation, a faint wondering tst!… of remembering something, and walk calmly, without brushing against anyone, over to the magician. She stood directly before him, quite still, her tall rounded shoulders drooping naturally and thrusting forward a little her head, that was raised to him, almost on a level with his own. He did not move; he did not gaze; his eyes blinked quietly. She put up her long arms and, standing just their length from him, brought her hands to rest on his shoulders. Her cropped head dropped before him to her chest.
It was the most extraordinary gesture. None of us could see her face; there was nothing but the gesture. God knows where it came from- he could not have put it into her will, it was not in any hypnotist’s repertoire, and she, surely, could not have had the place for something so other, in her female, placidly sensual nature. I don’t think I have ever seen such a gesture before, but I knew- they knew- we all knew what it meant. It was nothing to do with what exists between men and women. She had never made sure a gesture to her husband, or any man. She had never stood like that before her father- none of us has. How can I explain? One of the disciples might have come before Christ like that. There was the peace of absolute trust in it. It stirred a needle of fear in me- more than that, for a moment I was horribly afraid; and how can I explain that, either? For it was beautiful, and I have lived in Africa all my life and I know them, us, the white people. To see it was beautiful would make us dangerous.
There’s a lion on the property!
July 10, 2008
Read: -West with the Night- by Beryl Markham
July 10, 2008
‘And you picked me up, Bishon Singh?’
He made a little dip with his massive turban. ‘I was very happy with the duty of carrying you back to this very bed, Beru, and of advising your father, who had gone to observe some of Bwana Elkington’s horses, that you had been moderately eaten by a large lion. Your father returned very fast, and Bwana Elkington some time later returned very fast, but the large lion has not returned at all.’
The large lion had not returned at all. That night he killed a horse, and the next night he killed a yearling bullock, and after that a cow fresh for milking.
In the end he was caught and finally caged, but brought to no rendezvous with the firing squad at sunrise. He remained for years in his cage, which, had he managed to live in freedom with his inhibitions, he might never have seen at all.
It seems characteristic of the mind of man that the repression of what is natural to humans must be abhorred, but that what is natural to an infinitely more natural animal must be confined within the bounds of a reason peculiar only to men-more peculiar sometimes than seems reasonable at all.
Paddy lived, people stared at him and he stared back, and this went on until he was an old, old lion. Jim Elkington died, and Mrs. Elkington, who really loved Paddy, was forced, because of circumstances beyond her control or Paddy’s, to have him shot by Boy Long, the manager of Lord Delamere’s estates.
This choice of executioners was, in itself, a tribute to Paddy, for no one loved animals more or understood them better, or could shoot more cleanly than Boy Long.
But the result was the same to Paddy. He had lived and died in ways not of his choosing. He was a good lion. He had done what he could about being a tame lion. Who thinks it just to be judged by a single error?
I still have the scars of his teeth and claws, but they are very small now and almost forgotten, and I cannot begrudge him his moment.
