As we turned the corner of the modest whitewashed brick-and-thatch home to the backyard, I couldn’t help feeling that the place was like any other well-maintained home along Hout Bay in Cape Town, but was certainly out of place in the Caprivi. Never having been to Nigel’s house, I hadn’t thought about what it might look like. All I knew was that he lived across the river from the ranger station, up toward the border of Zambia, in the village of Singalamwe. I had just assumed it would be a simple reed-and-thatch rondavel surrounded by an unkempt mix of dust and weeds, like most village houses.
With his back to us, Nigel was trimming an impeccable line of rosebushes next to a bird feeder. The roses grew over a trellis and around a small fountain that trickled down a wall of rocks and into a koi pond. This garden would have taken some years to establish.
Nigel turned, as if surprised by our presence. “Oh, mutozi, Gidean.” He nodded the Lozi afternoon salutation as if he were meeting us for the very first time. “Catherine.” He bowed looking right through me, wearing that same cap, slightly curved more on one side than the other, similar to the one the man was wearing in the boat with Geldenhuis the night before.
I was unnerved by his behavior and yet furious that I was unnerved, as I suspected that that was exactly his intention. “Impressive gardening,” I said, looking around for more clues to peg him as the man I had seen in the boat with Geldenhuis the previous night.
“It is, isn’t it.” He continued with his pruning. “I took it over from the Baptist minister. Shame, when his wife died of cerebral malaria, he couldn’t face coming back here.” He snipped a branch. “I arrived just in time to inherit the place.”
I noticed that Nigel had orange mud on his boots and slashes of mud up his ankles.
“The funny thing about roses,” Nigel calmly explained while delicately snipping off a rose hip and holding it up to us, “is that people underestimate just how hardy they really are.”
Nigel turned his back again and heavily pruned back several branches. “The further you cut them back, the more they thrive. That doesn’t seem like the quality of a delicate flower, does it?”
My eyes adjusted past the roses to see some luggage sitting on the back step. “We missed you at the funeral.” I probed for a reaction.
“Shame to have had to miss it. I would have liked to have given the induna my condolences.”
I nodded toward his muddy legs and boots. “Have another run-in with hippos?”
Nigel snipped at a branch and stabbed himself with a thorn. “Bugger.” He grabbed his hand and replied, “Yes, the hippos are an ongoing problem in these waters.”
“Perhaps Mr. Lin also had a run-in with a hippo.” I waited for a reaction, but when I didn’t get any, I continued. “He was found in the Zambezi this morning.”
Nigel clucked his tongue. “The Chinese aren’t very good swimmers,” he replied, seemingly unmoved, as he stepped onto an area of loose dirt and tamped it down with his feet. “I just had my gardeners turn over the plot. It was high time I try sunflowers instead of mealies. If planted closely enough, they have a certain elegance to them, while mealie fields always look so bloody scrappy.”
“Sunflowers?” Gidean asked as he walked across an area of freshly overturned soil.
“That’s right,” Nigel replied. “Funny thing is, you can actually make a bloody decent wage from sunflower oil.” He shrugged. “I was just gardening for the aesthetic. I had thought about rice, but it’s just so messy. And you have to be careful of mosquitoes, what with cerebral malaria being so common.”
I walked to his back stoop and stood next to his luggage. “Going on another trip?”
Nigel strolled back over to his bird feeder, removed a bag from his pocket, and poured the contents—a mix of seed and something larger—into the feeder. “Yes, in fact. Thought I’d leave a little extra for the birds this time. Shame, they’ve grown so dependent.”
I walked over to the bird feeder. Would he really take the time to feed the birds and trim the garden before leaving? I casually poked my finger into the bird feeder.
“I hand select the seeds myself.” Nigel’s tone wavered.
I picked out a sunflower seed, cracked the shell with my fingers, and dropped it. “Fresh,” I said, impressed.
“Yes.” He smiled, his eyes focused on my fingers.
I poked my finger to the bottom, hitting what felt like jagged stones. I picked out another sunflower seed and put it in my mouth. “I was never a fan of the aftertaste.” I sucked. “But I do like the salt.” I spat out the whole seed.
We both said the word at the same time. “Unsalted.”
While I dipped my finger into the seed again, Nigel looked as if I had poked at an exposed tooth nerve. “Surprised you’d be taking off so soon again,” I said.
“Again?” Nigel asked as he casually put his hand over the seed, flattening the surface.
“After what must have been a very brief sojourn in the delta?” I poked a finger in between his, inspired by how uncomfortable he had become. “Gidean,” I called, “come have a taste of one of these sunflower seeds.” I glared at a man whose stare now chilled to the core—a man whom I had somehow never seen before now.
Gidean dug his hand down to the bottom of the feeder, grabbed a fistful of seed, and pulled it out. When he opened his palm, it was filled with large uncut diamonds speckled with seed.