Sarah shivered, staring down at the blue water of the hotel swimming pool. She had always been a good swimmer—fastest girl on her team. Once in the water, she was a fish. But she hated the chilling shock of the first dive. David would always say, “Why don’t you just jump in and get it over with?”
She dangled a foot in the water, then inched down the steps, bouncing a few times at each level. Finally, the water was up to her chin. She did a surface dive, kicked off the side, and shot across the pool underwater, like a torpedo, all the way to the other end of the pool. Her signature race had been the individual medley. Butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke, crawl. Or was it butterfly, backstroke?
She charged back down the pool, her arms sweeping over the water in broad arcs, legs locked tandem in a dolphin kick. Tom, the captain of her swim team, did a powerfully mean butterfly—his torso thrusting up out of the water with each breath, displaying his impressive lattisimus dorsi muscles. She hadn’t known the name of those muscles then—she was only thirteen. But she had been very impressed with his physique. And she had a secret crush on him. At the end of the pool, she remembered what to do in the next lap.
Backstroke.
She pulled her knees up under her chin and pushed backwards off the side of the pool. Three kicks for each stroke, arms reaching back toward the other end of the pool.
One two three, one two three …
As she pushed off for the breaststroke lap, there was a huge splash beside her. It was Pieter, forging ahead with a butterfly stroke every bit as awesome as the old swim team captain’s style. But there was something odd about his left shoulder. Was it scarred? It would be rude to ask.
Pieter lazed against the edge of the pool. “Good morning. What took you so long?”
“I didn’t know it was a race.”
“It wasn’t. Just friendly swimming, right?”
Sarah touched the wall, executed a racer’s turn, and took off on her final lap. It was her best stroke: freestyle. AKA, crawl.
She swam as fast as she could, concentrating on her technique: One-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three, BREATHE; one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three, BREATHE.
When she popped up at the other end of the pool, Pieter was sitting up on the edge. “You know, you’re not a bad swimmer. For a girl.”
“Hmmph. Out of shape. No place to swim near the hospital.”
“You mean you haven’t joined the health club at Kibo View Lodge?”
“Didn’t know about it.”
“You should join. Nice pool, nice gym. They even have some of those Zumba classes—you know, like you … girls like.”
“Thanks. I’ll check it out.”
Sarah pulled herself out and sat beside him. “Where are the boys?”
“In the room.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t follow you out here.”
“Room service breakfast for them. And video games. I wasn’t planning to go for a swim, until I looked out the window and saw you tiptoeing into the water.”
Sarah blushed. “I didn’t think anyone saw me. I know I should just jump into the water and get it over with, but I really don’t like to do that.”
“If you don’t like jumping in, why should you?”
“You don’t think I looked silly? Creeping into the water like that?”
“Actually, you did look quite silly.” He hugged himself and pretended to shiver. “Oooh! I’m so cold!”
Sarah jumped back into the pool and began sloshing water onto Pieter.
“Careful now. You don’t really want to start a war with me. Besides, you shouldn’t feel so insulted. What’s wrong with looking silly sometimes?”
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’d better go get ready.”
SARAH AND PIETER took the back seat in the van with a large well-stocked cooler between them, including ice packs for the boys’ lips. The rush hour had abated but traffic was still crazy. Vendors walked up and down the street along the traffic jam, hawking a variety of goods: peanuts, shoes, candy, pots and pans. One enterprising young man sold tropical fish from a plexiglass tank balanced on the top of his head.
Finally, they were out on the open road.
“So, tell me, Pieter, exactly what brought you to Kandu?”
“It is a bit of a long story.”
“It’s a long drive.”
“Okay, I told you I was a small child when my family came to this country.”
“Mmm, hmm.”
“Our housekeeper was Mohammedi. I called her Mo Mo. She was like another mother. I didn’t see her much after I went to boarding school, and then my parents moved back to the Netherlands. When I was a medical student, I came here to study for two months, and I wanted to see her. But my mother told me that she had died.”
“And no one had told you before that?”
Pieter shook his head. “She had moved back to her family’s village, which is Kandu.”
“And Hamid and Jamal are—"
“Her sister’s grandchildren.”
Sarah gazed at the two boys. “How did she die?”
He shrugged. “Fever”
“Typhoid?” Preventable, she thought, vaccinations, sanitation …
“No, something else—not clear what. It was a sudden outbreak that flared up and died out quickly. Some kind of hemorrhagic fever. About two hundred people died.”
Sarah’s pulse quickened. “Like, Ebola?”
“No, no, no. We don’t get that around here. When Robert and I went to visit Mo Mo’s family, they called it red eye fever.”
“Robert. Margo’s brother? She told me he died in a road accident.”
“He was on a motorcycle, struck by a minibus. They took him to surgery to repair a leg fracture. But he never woke up.”
“Operation was a success, but …”
“Exactly. They did not recognize his head injury. Epidural hematoma.”
Sarah knew all about epidural blood clots. A ruptured artery in the lining of his brain. Patients are briefly unconscious after a severe blow to the head. Then they are fully conscious during a “lucid interval,” followed by sudden death. If Robert had not been put to sleep for the leg surgery, someone would have checked his eyes and noticed a dilated pupil—a sign that an expanding blood clot was pushing his brain down toward that opening in the skull where the spinal cord exits. Like squeezing toothpaste from a tube.
If he had been awake, someone would have noticed the telltale change in his eyes. Someone could have drilled a hole into his skull to relieve the pressure. Sarah had done that once before—made a life-saving burr hole in a child with a head injury. If she had been there, she could have done that for Robert. And if Pieter had been there …
He stared silently out the window. Then he opened the cooler. “I need some water. Anyone else?”
“Any Coke Lite?” Sarah asked.
“Coke Zero.” Pieter pulled out a bottle and handed it to her. “Here is your poison.”
Sarah touched his arm, tentatively. “It’s still hard, isn’t it?”
“Robert was a great fellow. We were best friends, as long as I can remember—like a brother. I would go with him to visit his grandparents, out in the Serengeti. And he came to Amsterdam with me for the first year of boarding school. It was culture shock for both of us. I would have been miserable if I had gone there alone. But he was this Massai warrior, and all the boys were fascinated by his tales.”
Hamid twisted around to look at Pieter. “Robert was warrior?”
“Yes. I was invited to his circumcision ceremony.”
Hamid’s eyes grew wide. “Did he kill lion?”
Pieter nodded. “He was in a group that killed a lion.”
The two little boys wriggled from their lap belts and kneeled to peer over the seat. “Did you see Robert kill lion?”
Tumaini called out to them to sit down and buckle up.
“I didn’t see the lion kill. But he told me how they did it.”
There was no way the little boys were going to keep their seats now.
“It took five of them. First, the shield man jumped in front of the lion.” Pieter held up his hand to show how the man would hold the shield. “Then a man in back would grab the lion by the tail.”
Jamal gasped and put a hand over his mouth.
“Then the spear man stabbed the lion.”
Hamid thought it was too bad that Pieter did not get to see this. Tumaini again ordered the boys to sit down.
“I’m glad I didn’t see it,” said Pieter. “Lions are beautiful creatures.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But I did kill a leopard.”
The two boys popped back up and Jamal bumped his lip on the seat, and it started bleeding. Pieter pulled an ice pack from the cooler, and Sarah gently scolded the boy. “This is why you need to sit still.” She pressed the ice against the wound and glanced at Pieter. “You’re kidding about the leopard, right?”
He shook his head. “She would have killed Robert.”
Tumaini called out, “I want to hear this story!”
Pieter clambered over the seat and settled between the boys.
“We were visiting Robert’s grandmother and went out walking outside the manyatta.”
Sarah asked, “What’s a manyatta?”
“Sort of like a camp. A temporary enclosure for animals and sleeping huts. When you take the animals somewhere else to graze, you go to another manyatta, or build a new one.”
Hamid was getting impatient. “Where was leopard?”
“I am getting to that. We were just wandering around, pretending to hunt. Actually, looking for hyrax. You know those little furry creatures?”
Both boys nodded.
“The leopard jumped out of a tree and knocked Robert to the ground—like this.” Pieter locked an arm around each boy and jerked them forward.
As they erupted into shrieks and giggles, Sarah scolded, “Hey, they’re supposed to be quiet. Not jumping around.”
“Sorry.” He buckled both boys into their seats before continuing the story. “Robert was helpless—pinned down on his stomach. My rifle was small, so I had to get close. And I had to be careful not to hit Robert. So, I crouched down and shot the leopard in the eye. It didn’t kill her, but she was stunned and rolled off him. Then I grabbed his spear and … that’s how I killed her. But she got me here.” He opened his shirt, so the boys could see the scars on his shoulder. The marks Sarah had seen during their morning swim.
“You were a warrior,” said Tumaini. “They should have let you keep the skin.”
“They did. And I kept the cub as a pet for a few years. That’s why she attacked us—she was protecting her baby.”
The boys giggled and squirmed and tried to keep Pieter from buttoning up his shirt. He told them to settle down and climbed back next to Sarah. She said, “So you’re a real Massai warrior?”
“Honorary. There was a special ceremony. My parents were invited. And Robert’s cousin offered to share his wife with me for the night.”
“You mean, sleep with her?”
“Yes—traditional Massai hospitality.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not. I was only twelve. I thought my mother would faint. My father was much calmer. He made a nice speech thanking them for the honor, but he explained that a white man should only sleep with his own wife. On the way home, in our car, he gave me quite a long lecture about the dangers of sex: horrible incurable diseases, girls getting pregnant … He said if I was not careful, I might wind up having to get married and live in one of those huts. And that is when my mother decided that I should go to boarding school in Amsterdam.”
“That was the reason? Nearly being killed by a leopard had nothing to do with the decision?”
“Well, I am certain many factors were involved. But that was another piece of hay.”
“Hay?”
“You know, the hay that was too heavy …” Pieter tapped an index finger against his chin, trying to recall the phrase.
“You mean the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“I’m charmed by the way you almost get these old sayings right.”
“Thank you for your feedback. My charm requires continual maintenance.”