Rhinoceros Summer Page 10

  Dad would wave his hands in the air for Grandpa to stop, then knock on the driver’s side window. Grandpa would roll it down and with a surprised look on his face say, “What?”

  They would discuss the situation before Grandpa drove forward far enough for Lydia and Mom to pull the can out of the way.

  “Were you ever scared when he drove us to lunch?”

  “Your Grandpa—”

  Dad interrupted. “He was a good man who worked hard to give his family a better life.”

  They would each enter the Cadillac from different doors, Dad in front, Lydia and Mom in the backseat—all silent, respectful, unwilling to question Grandpa’s competence. The click of seatbelts always felt deafening. Mom always yanked on the straps to confirm they were secure. The exhaust permeated the backseat and the oil Grandpa used to shine the seats inevitably transferred from her fingers to her mouth, so that as the car consumed her, she also consumed it. Grandpa would turn on his favorite talk radio station so it blared through the car—these were the only sounds that accompanied the purring engine. Lydia believed the soundtrack to her last moments on earth would be the Dr. Laura Show.

  Later, Lydia would tell the M’s she’d ridden in the Cadillac Coffin again, and laugh and make jokes of her near death experiences, though it never seemed funny at the time, only dangerous and wrong and thrilling. Neither of her parents would mention the dented garbage can, Grandpa’s shaking hands gripping the steering wheel, the rollercoaster-like bumps that jarred their bodies as the car veered onto the edge of the lanes—the bumps that Lydia always thought meant get away, stay within the lines, you’re straying too far over. A blind man used his fingers to read braille. Grandpa used his Cadillac’s tires to read the lane markers.

  Why did they let Grandpa drive, why had they pretended everything was okay, why had they risked an accident? Somehow, the answers to those questions would answer her own—should she pretend everything was okay? Should she stay?

  “He was a man who deserved every respect we could afford to give him,” Dad said.

  “But that’s just it, Aaron. We put our lives in danger every time we let him sit behind that wheel. And for what?” Mom sighed. “Lydia, your grandfather was a good man but allowing him to drive—”

  “Was the right thing to do,” Dad finished. “Were we injured? No. No harm was done and Dad went to heaven secure—”

  Mom’s voice turned hard. “No, I don’t believe God had anything to do with it. He doesn’t reward foolish decisions.”

  Her parents argued through their separate receivers, forgetting she was on the phone with them.

  They would not agree. They never agreed about anything anymore. She would not get the answers she needed from them. But even that was its own kind of answer. She did not want to go back to being PK-Lydia. Anything was better than that.

  Dad sighed and said, “Look, I don’t want to fight about this now.”

  “It’s important for our daughter to know that her safety comes first. Always,” Mom shot back. “Why are you asking? Did something happen?”

  “God will protect her. She’s doing God’s work. Nothing is going to happen to her that isn’t already a part of God’s Plan.”

  Mom almost yelled. “Don’t say stuff like that.”

  Lydia closed her eyes, wishing herself off the phone and away from her parents’ problems. “Nothing’s happened. Just a bad dream last night. I’ll be safe,” Lydia said, even though she hadn’t felt safe since stepping off the plane, onto what seemed like her own personal rollercoaster. Paul might be using her for a purpose she did not fully understand—but whatever he wanted, he needed her.

  Her and her camera.

  “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “Trust her, Gloria. She knows what she’s doing.”

  “Stop it, Aaron.” Mom took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be talking like this in front of you.”

  Before Dad could give his response, Lydia said, “I should probably go. I need to get my stuff ready.”

  “Wait, before you go, I just—” Mom stumbled over her next words, still trying to sound apologetic. “I called the resort last night. I think it would have been morning there, just to make sure they knew when to pick you up. Anyways, the lady said something about getting ready for a hunting trip and I tried to make them understand you weren’t hunting. You were the girl with the camera, but I couldn’t get a sensible answer from anyone.”

  Blood rushed to her head, making her dizzy. “That’s what they call it here. Hunting for pictures.”

  In the midst of her parents fighting, she’d almost forgotten that part. But it couldn’t be that bad, hunting animals—Africa’s version of deer hunting maybe. Like hunting rabbits or quail, something a few of the elders at church did, sometimes taking Dad out with them. She ate meat, she couldn’t claim to be against hunting, even if it was lions and elephants and…She could always decide to leave later, right? If things got bad enough, if she couldn’t stomach the hunting, she could just as easily fly out two weeks from now as she could fly out tomorrow.

  “Oh,” Mom said. “Good hunting then.”

  Her parents asked more questions about the plane ride, what Tanzania was like, how Paul looked after so many years. Safe questions that didn’t lead to any more arguments. Lydia kept her answers vague and felt relief at the sleepy tone creeping into her mom’s voice.

  “I should really go and get ready. We’re leaving soon for a ten-day trip. I won’t get a chance to call while I’m gone.”

  They said their goodbyes. Lydia stared at the phone and its curly-cue cord for a few moments after hanging up. She brushed her hand along the fireplace again. Her skin felt dry, as if the rock might snag it at any moment.

  She’d just lied to her parents. Big lies. And only a small part of her felt bad about it.

  2

  Lydia let paul know she would stay through the first safari and then avoided him and everyone else in the resort.

  She watched the first clients arrive from her half-closed doorway. A man and woman who looked maybe a couple decades older than her parents bustled in and out of the room three doors down from hers. They pointed and gestured for the staff to bring up their luggage—Lydia counted at least twelve pieces pulled from the taxi.

  After deciding that the clients looked like a sweet older couple who had over-packed for their vacation, Lydia went to lay out her flight information on the cotton sheets. She made note of the phone number to call and change her return date. No matter how nice this couple looked, if things got too bad, she wouldn’t stay, she decided.

  This allowed her to cheerfully throw herself into organizing her equipment.

  She packed and made sure to include a nice set of clothes for the celebration Paul said would happen at the end of this first safari. For courage, for confirmation that she was doing the right thing, she returned again and again to her book describing Ella Maillart, one of the first woman photographers who rode a camel across the desert and could walk fourteen hours without food in order to get the perfect pictures. “Nobody can go?” she once said. “Then I shall go.”

  By lunch, Lydia felt ready to take on Paul’s deceptions, Caleb’s anger, whatever wildness the safari held in store for her. She read through the instructions again and again for applying to the National Geographic intern position: we are interested in your ability to produce a visual narrative. Her gutter pictures wouldn’t count, but if she could make a story about Blue Nile Safari, even if that included hunting, it would be worth ignoring Paul’s lies for now.

  She walked into the dining room intent on treating Paul’s first client with the utmost of respect and enthusiasm. The table was set with crisp, white linens and white porcelain. The core members of Blue Nile Safari—Caleb, Abiba, Paul—sat around the table with the Hellermans. Silverware clinked against the plates. A chair scraped as Caleb seemed about to stand up at the sight of her, but then he looked away and r
emained seated. She didn’t know what that meant, and decided she didn’t care. The smell of French toast took over her thoughts. Her stomach rumbled and she could almost taste the sweet maple syrup gleaming in a glass container on the center of the table. It shocked her to realize she had not eaten since the plane.

  She piled her plate high with toast and butter from the buffet-style side table and took an empty seat next to Abiba, away from Caleb, and across from the Hellermans. As she grabbed for the syrup, she looked up, ready to smile and introduce herself. She caught Mr. Hellerman staring at her. She avoided his stare by concentrating on how his lids seemed void of eyelashes and how his blonde eyebrow hair seemed to fade into his sun-spotted skin.

  “I’m Jack Hellerman.” He reached over the syrup.

  It took all of Lydia’s willpower to shake his hand. Mr. Hellerman’s hand seemed twice as big as hers. It was covered in old scars, sunspots, and knobby knuckles. The skin felt mushy against her own. “I’m Lydia.” She tried to pull away after two shakes.

  He held on for another second and then let go.

  She hid her hands back under the table.

  “How long you been here?” Mr. Hellerman asked.

  She kept her eyes unfocused so that Mr. Hellerman’s face remained a bit blurry. It was a trick she’d learned to get through boring Sunday sermons—to look like she was paying attention while daydreaming. “Barely a day,” she said with a polite smile, and then avoided further conversation by pouring syrup onto her plate and tearing into the food. Each bite helped steady her.

  Her progress was interrupted by a touch on her shoulder.

  “She’s going to be our photographer,” Paul said from behind her. “Take some killer video of you and the award-winning elephant we’re going to bag.”

  “Then you’re coming on safari?” Mr. Hellerman asked, giving her a creepy look.

  Just like that, her appetite disappeared.

  “Sure she is. Our most vital pieces of equipment on safari—besides our guns—are a camera and the GPS tracker. A camera to make a record of the event and GPS to find the game. I log everything into it: coordinates of watering ponds, where trophy-worthy animals have been spotted in past seasons. We got the Big Five to hunt and the Top Three to do it with: guns, GPS and Lydia’s pictures.”

  The words coming out of Paul’s mouth seemed to increase the gleam on Mr. Hellerman’s lips. He periodically ran his tongue over them. Caleb and the woman next him—Paul had said her name was Abiba—watched them. Mrs. Hellerman sat to the left of Mr. Hellerman, but seemed absorbed in talking with Muna about something to do with the food.

  “I knew Lydia’s mother. What a woman.” Paul laughed. “She could ride a horse bareback, drive a speedboat with one hand, and match a man drink for drink.” Paul squeezed Lydia’s shoulder.

  Lydia didn’t want to think about what Paul might know about her mother. She wanted Mr. Hellerman to stop staring and for Paul to remove his hand from her shoulder. She should just say it: Please stop touching me. Please stop staring.

  “That’s why I asked Lydia to come. She’s just like her mother. One of those athletic, strong-boned women who manage to look gorgeous with their hair messed up—”

  Lydia mumbled something about wanting orange juice from the drink table. Paul dropped his hand from her shoulder. She pushed back her chair and turned away from Mr. Hellerman. A part of her understood Paul was using her like a, like a…

  No, Paul was only making the client feel welcome. She was overreacting. She wasn’t used to Tanzania, to people like Paul or Mr. Hellerman. But wasn’t that part of why she’d wanted to come? To experience new people and places?

  She spent a long time pouring her orange juice, sipping it, letting the pulpy bits slide against her tongue as she stared out the window at rolling hills still covered in green grass, miles and miles of open space that called for her to travel it, to see what could be seen over the next hill, to feel the wind tickle the hair on her arm, to crunch the wet grass under her shoes, to heft the weight of a camera into her hands—

  “We decided it didn’t matter how much we had left over, we were gonna do a safari and figure out the money later.”

  Lydia snapped out of her daydreaming and reluctantly returned to her seat.

  Mr. Hellerman attacked his eggs with clumsy fingers, pitching in his fork so roughly he came up with little food. In between bites, he talked about how he and his wife had been small-time farmers in some Midwestern state when a big farming corporation had bought their land, putting the Hellermans out of business.

  Mr. Hellerman took another swipe of eggs off his plate, not bothering to finish chewing before saying, “I got a son in Los Angeles working on movies. Gonna get me a job constructing sets, or something—something a farmer can do.” Mr. Hellerman barked a short laugh. He poked his wife lightly in the ribs. “Well and if that don’t work, maybe I’ll become a day trader.”

  Mrs. Hellerman turned and giggled as if it were an old joke.

  “Sure you’re not going on the hunt with us, Mary?” Little bits of unchewed egg showed in Mr. Hellerman’s teeth as he asked.

  Mrs. Hellerman was still slim enough to nicely fit into a tight pair of jeans and a polo shirt. She touched her pinned-up hair, brown with a few gray streaks running through. “Oh no. We sold that farm and my desire to get dirty went with it. I am done with overalls, cow pies, fresh chicken eggs, the whole bucket. I’m deciding what hedonist activities I’ll engage in while you’re gone. So many to choose from, though massages and spa-bathing tops the list. Paul, can you get those people to come in from town?”

  “Of course,” Paul said. “Abiba has already arranged everything.”

  They continued with brunch until Mr. Hellerman pushed back his plate and said, “Jet lag is hell.” The couple left to take an afternoon nap.

  Caleb left the soon after the Hellermans without ever saying hello to her. Then Paul exited without a word or glance, as if he couldn’t be bothered to speak with her now that his real audience was no longer present. Lydia was alone with Abiba.

  She took a last sip of orange juice, the sourness slipping down her throat. She realized all of a sudden that the juice must have been fresh-squeezed, from real, slightly unripe oranges, instead of juice doctored with sugar and artificial flavors.

  “Caleb said you talk about Paul,” Abiba said as Lydia stood up from the table. “Believe him? What he say about Paul?”

  Lydia rested her hands flat on the tablecloth. The linen felt smooth and well washed. She saw it was rather threadbare and yellowed in spots. The breakfast smells had drifted into nothingness and so had the sounds. There was a stillness in the room that felt both peaceful and dangerous. Lydia didn’t understand how both could be present together. She wanted to throw open a window and taste the fresh Tanzanian air and let the air blow away the breakfast conversations, let it blow away whatever Abiba planned to say next, but she remained in her seat and scraped the last bits of syrup and toast into a pile on her plate instead. No one had actually introduced her to Abiba yet but that didn’t seem to matter to her.

  “Paul admitted he lied,” Lydia said. The look on Abiba’s face intimidated her. Her room felt miles away. “It doesn’t make it right, but I don’t want to come all this way and not get a chance to use my camera. It can’t be that bad…and if it’s bad, I’ll just go home. I can still leave if I need to.”

  Abiba folded her hands over her chest to show wrinkled skin and delicate fingertips with perfect moon-shaped nails. She kept them intertwined against her body. “Listen, malaika. Little child. I young like you once.” Abiba stared hard into Lydia’s eyes. “I beautiful like you. My daughter beautiful like you. But beauty is most dangerous thing.”

  “I don’t think I’m that beautiful,” Lydia said. She flipped her hair and gave a laugh that sounded false even to her own ears.

  Abiba sighed.

  “Caleb like son to me. But I know this of him. He like animal thirsty for shade. He will sit under mpingo
tree and let thorns cut. And Mzungu, Paul, is tree that does not care what its thorns make bleed. Understand?”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “No. You do not understand. I did not understand in the beginning.” Abiba sighed. “You should not be here. But stay and see, if you must.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Caleb

  When Caleb was a child Abiba would wake him so he could watch at the breakfast table as Paul and the new clients figured out how the safari would go. Neela had stayed behind the scenes with Abiba then, but Caleb would seek her out after eating so they could play at shooting animals in the bush, both of them finding birds and small animals to point at with their fingers.

  He might point to a tiny honey-seeker bird zipping by. “Look at the wingspan on that thing, a trophy for sure!”

  Neela would find a small rodent to match his bird and exclaim, “Those whiskers are the longest I’ve ever seen! I must have them for my collection!” She spoke English as well as, better sometimes, than he did. Abiba had insisted Paul pay for her to attend the same school as Caleb.

  Neela’s skinny brown legs would pound across the dirt behind the resort, raising little puffs of dust at every step as she shouted to Caleb. “I’m gonna catch the fattest black mole you’ve ever seen!”

  “Oh yeah,” he would call back. “Mine’s going to have the longest toenails you’ve ever seen!”

  Before Paul had allowed Caleb to carry a real gun, Caleb and Neela would take slingshots and bring in their trophies for Abiba to evaluate. They’d lay the dead creatures out on the kitchen counter to be measured so they could see whether Neela or Caleb had won.

  Sometimes Paul came in to help evaluate the finds. If he noticed any females in their kill he’d say, “Gotta leave them alive to make the next generation.” Otherwise he lavished praise on their games, upgrading Caleb’s sling with a BB gun, then a small .22 pistol that Caleb and Neela took turns using as they tracked their prey through the land surrounding the resort.