Assegai

Their return to Lusima’s village was a happy homecoming. The herd-boys spied them from afar and shouted the news to the villagers, who trooped out to welcome them with singing and laughter. Lusima was waiting for them under the council tree. She embraced Eva and made her sit on her right-hand side. Leon took the stool on her other side and helped with translation when their intuitive understanding faltered. Suddenly he broke off in the middle of a sentence and raised his head to sniff the air. ‘What on earth is that wonderful aroma?’ he demanded, of no one in particular.

‘Coffee!’ cried Eva. ‘Wonderful, glorious coffee!’ Ishmael came towards them with a pair of mugs in one hand and a steaming coffee pot in the other. His grin was triumphant. ‘You are a worker of miracles!’ Eva greeted him in French. ‘That is the only thing I needed to make my life perfect.’

‘I have also brought you many of your beautiful clothes and shoes so that you no longer have to wear the garments of the infidel.’ He indicated her shuka with a grimace of the deepest disapproval and disgust.

‘Ishmael!’ Leon’s voice was sharp with alarm. ‘While we were away, did you go down to Percy’s Camp to fetch the coffee and the memsahib’s clothes?’

‘Ndio, Bwana.’ Ishmael grinned with pride. ‘I rode hard on my mule and I was there and back in only four days.’

‘Did anybody see you? Who else was at the camp?’

‘Only Bwana Hennie.’

‘Did you tell him where we are?’ Leon demanded.

‘Yes, he asked me,’ Ishmael answered. Then his face fell as he saw Leon’s expression. ‘Did I do wrong, Effendi?’

Leon turned away as he struggled to suppress his anger and the dread that had engulfed him. When he turned back his face was blank. ‘You did what you thought was right, Ishmael. The coffee is excellent, as good as any you’ve ever brewed.’ But Ishmael knew him too well to be taken in by his words. It was not clear to him how he had erred, but he was stricken with guilt as he backed away to his kitchen hut.

Eva was watching Leon. Her face was pale and her hands were clenched in her lap. ‘Something dreadful has happened, hasn’t it?’ Her voice was soft and calm but her eyes were dark with worry.

‘We cannot stay here any longer,’ Leon told her grimly, and turned to look into the west where the sun was already on the horizon. ‘We should leave at once, but it’s already too late. I don’t want to chance the track down the mountain in the dark. We’ll go at first light tomorrow.’

‘What is it, Badger?’ Eva reached across to take his hand.

‘While we were at the eagle’s nest, Ishmael went down to Percy’s Camp to fetch supplies. Hennie du Rand was there. Ishmael told him where we are. Hennie has no idea of the delicate circumstances that have overtaken you and me. We cannot chance it, Eva. If Graf Otto is alive he will come after you.’

‘He is dead, my darling.’

‘So you dreamed, but we cannot be sure. Then there are your masters in Whitehall. If they find out where you are, they will not let you go. We must run.’

‘Where to?’

‘If we can get to one of the aircraft, we can fly across the German border to Dar es Salaam, and from there take a ship to South Africa or Australia. Once we get there we can change our names and disappear.’

‘We don’t have any money,’ she pointed out.

‘Percy left me enough. Will you come with me?’

‘Of course,’ she replied, without hesitation. ‘From now on, wherever you go, I go also.’

Leon smiled at her and said simply, ‘My heart, my dear heart.’ Then he turned back to Lusima. ‘Mama, we have to leave.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed at once. ‘This I have foreseen, but I could not tell it to you.’

Somehow Eva understood what Lusima had said. ‘Have you been given a glimpse beyond the curtain, Mama?’ she demanded eagerly.

Lusima nodded, so she went on, ‘Will you tell us what you have seen?’

‘It is not much, and little of it is what you want to hear, my flower.’

‘I will hear it nonetheless. You may have something to tell us that will be our salvation.’

Lusima sighed. ‘As you wish, but I have warned you.’ She clapped her hands and her girls came running to kneel before her. Lusima gave them their orders and they scampered away to her hut. By the time they returned, carrying the paraphernalia Lusima used for divination, the sun had set and the brief twilight was fading into night. The girls laid her tools close to Lusima’s hand, then built up the small fire. She opened one of the small leather bags and scooped from it a handful of dried herbs. Muttering an incantation, she threw it into the fire, and it burned up in a puff of acrid smoke. One of the girls brought a clay pot and placed it on the fire in front of her. It was filled to the brim with a liquid that reflected the flames like a mirror.

‘Come and sit beside me.’ She motioned to Eva and Leon. They formed a circle with her around the pot. Lusima dipped a horn cup into the liquid and offered it to each in turn. They swallowed a mouthful of the bitter brew, and Lusima drank what was left.

‘Look into the mirror,’ she ordered, and they stared into the pot. Their own images wavered on the surface, but neither saw anything beyond that. The liquid began to bubble and boil as Lusima chanted softly, and her eyes glazed as she stared into the rising clouds of steam. When at last she spoke her voice was harsh and strained: ‘There are two enemies, a man and a woman. They seek to sever the chain of love that binds you to each other.’

Eva gave a small cry of pain, but then was silent.

‘I see that the woman has a silver flag on her head.’

‘Mrs Ryan in London,’ Eva whispered, when Leon translated this to her. ‘She has a streak of silver in the front of her hair.’

‘The man has only one hand.’

They looked across the pot at each other, but Leon shook his head. ‘I don’t know who that might be. Tell us, Mama, will these two enemies succeed in their designs?’

Lusima moaned as though in pain. ‘I can see no further. The sky is filled with smoke and flame. The whole world is burning. It is obscure, but I see a great silver fish above the flames that brings hope of love and fortune.’

‘What fish is this, Mama?’ Leon asked.

‘Please explain your vision to us,’ Eva pleaded, but Lusima’s eyes had cleared and focused again.

‘There is no more,’ she said regretfully. ‘I warned you that little of it is what you wanted to hear, my flower.’ She reached forward and overturned the clay pot, spilling its contents on to the fire, extinguishing it in a cloud of hissing steam. ‘Go to your rest now. This may be your last night on Lonsonyo Mountain for a long, long while.’