Fletch, Too

Conversationally, Sheila said to Barbara, “You’re enjoying your honeymoon?”

“He drives me nuts.”

“Yes. There’s always that.”

They were sitting in a semicircle in camp chairs just outside the long stretch of canvas on four poles. Carr had provided each with a Scotch and soda. Bug-repellent candles were here and there around them. Over them hung a moon such as Fletch had never seen before. It was a black orb within a perfect silver circumference. The noises from the jungle were absolutely raucous. As he listened to the conversation, Fletch watched the monkeys playing about here and there in the candlelight. Under the canvas behind them, a man named Winston had set the dining table for four.

“He complains I speak nicely to him in public and nastily to him in private,” Barbara said.

“There’s a lot of that goes on in marriage,” Sheila said.

Carr said, “We’re not exactly married.”

“So I’ve decided to speak nastily to him in public, too.” Barbara giggled.

“Will you speak nicely to me in private?” Fletch asked.

“If there is ever anything to speak nicely to you about, I will say it both in public and in private.”

Juma came out of the dark carrying a camp chair. He sat down with them.

Carr asked, “Would you like a whiskey, Juma?”

“No. Thank you. I don’t like whiskey. It makes me drunk.”

“Oh. I see.”

Fletch said to Sheila, “Our honeymoon has not worked out as planned.”

“Barbara mentioned something about your planning a skiing honeymoon. In Colorado.”

“She did?” Fletch mocked surprise.

“Yes. She did mention it.”

“Our wedding was not as planned, either,” Barbara said. “It was on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Fletch was late. The wedding got rained out. He spent the day with his mother.”

Carr shot Fletch a quick glance.

“Weddings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” Fletch advised Carr. “You haven’t missed much.”

“He showed up at his wedding in blue jeans, a well-used T-shirt, and torn sneakers.”

“I’d shaved. You must understand, I’d been working day and night. I have a job.”

Juma leaned close to Fletch and asked quietly, “Is Barbara your first wife?”

Fletch blinked. “Yes.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Clothes don’t make the couple,” Sheila said. “At least, not until later in life.”

Carr said, “You both look hot.”

Because of the flies, Barbara and Fletch had decided to wear long ski pants, sweaters with sleeves, and ski boots to dinner.

“I’m boiling,” Barbara said. “Are you sure you’re not having me for dinner?”

They had been surprised to find Sheila and Carr dressed only in pajamas and mosquito boots.

“Dining in pajamas is an old Kenyan custom,” Carr said. “A natural result of safarini. After spending a day in the bush, the thing you most want, after a drink, is a bath. After a bath, what’s more natural than slipping into cool, cotton pajamas? They even look more formal than our usual short-pants rig. In the bad old days, people used to go dine at each other’s houses in pajamas. They’d even go out to dine at a hotel or restaurant in pajamas.”

Close by, a lion roared.

“Good God!” Barbara said. “I’m being boiled for a lion!”

“Think of it as a tape recording, if you wish,” Carr said.

“I shall be eaten alive.”

“Whatever shall I tell your mother?” Fletch asked.

“No, no,” Carr said. “Hungry lions are quiet lions. That roar sounds like he’s had his kill, his fill, his sleep, and now he’s calling around to see where his pride is, where his friends are.” Either the lion roared more loudly, or the lion was closer. “Your average wild beast has seen man and doesn’t think much of us.”

“Even as dessert?” Barbara asked.

“Even as a snack.”

A man named Raffles came by to freshen their drinks.

“We came out to Africa to meet my father,” Fletch said to Sheila. “At our wedding a man showed up with a letter from him.”

“A letter written in disappearing ink,” Barbara added.

“Yes,” Sheila said. “Peter told me there’d been some trouble at the Thorn Tree Cafe. It doesn’t sound too serious.”

Fletch looked at Juma. “It sounds to me that any trouble with the law in Kenya is very serious.”

“A wonderfully attractive man, your father,” Sheila said.

“He is?” Carr asked.

“Don’t you think so?”

“No.”

“A little immature, perhaps. But some societies prize immaturity in a man.”

“Irresponsible,” said Carr. “When he was flying for me, I never knew where the hell he was.”

“Well,” Sheila admitted, “he is a bit of a will-o’-the-wisp.”

Barbara said, “I’ll say.”

“Enormously popular,” Sheila said.

“Maybe with the ladies,” Carr said.

“Oh, come on, Peter. You men like him, too.”

Carr shook his head. “Too much the iconoclast.”

Sheila said, “He does have his own way of doing things. But, after all, most of the people who have settled in Africa have done so because they’re a bit too individualistic for other places. Take you, for example, Peter.”

“Right,” said Carr. “I have my own way of doing things. But usually I stay out of the beds of other chaps’ wives, and keep my fists out of other chaps’ faces.”

Fletch winced. “How come you’re friends?”

There was a moment before Carr answered. “What are friends? The international fraternity of fliers. Roughly the same age. We find ourselves in the same place at the same time.”

Sheila said, “Walter Fletcher is a man of great personal energy.”

“Mostly misspent,” Carr muttered.

“Why do you say that?” Sheila asked. “He has his own plane, plenty of work-”

“There’s a reverse spin to everything he does,” Carr said. “He flies in our faces, is what he does. Last year, as a group, we decided to stop flying in and out of Uganda. Too much paperwork. Too dangerous for our equipment and passengers. Your Walter Fletcher takes to flying in and out of Uganda like a hawk. Makes three years’ pay in one year, at least.” Looking at the moon, Carr asked, “And where is he now?”

“But you came with him to the hotel,” Fletch said, “to meet us.”

“Exactly,” Carr said. “I was there, and he wasn’t.”

“You said you were there to be his moral support.”

“Right.” Carr put down his glass. “Walter’s morals need propping up. Care to eat with us, Juma?”

Juma glanced at Sheila. “No, thank you. I’ve eaten.”

In the candlelight, Carr was looking into Fletch’s eyes. “All this has nothing to do with you, you know.”

Fletch said, “Oh. I see.”

“Will you be able to spend a few days with us, Peter?” Sheila asked.

“A few days. Then I have to fly some French hôteliers up to the Masai Mara. Pick them up in Nairobi. They’re traveling around, studying the Block Hotels. I’ll be gone two nights.”

“The Masai Mara,” Fletch said. “I hear it’s nice there.”

“Welcome to join me,” Carr said. “There’ll be room in the plane.”

“If we don’t hear from Walter first,” Sheila said.

“Yeah. I told his lawyer where we’d all be.”

“Who flies your other plane?” Fletch asked.

“A young Kenyan. He’s flying hard for us these days, while I’m down here wasting time and money. The perks of age and ownership. He can’t make the Masai Mara trip, though. He’s chartered to fly to Madagascar.”

“I’m afraid we’re imposing,” said Fletch.

“Why? Good company is worth anything in the bush. Tomorrow well all get some hard work in.”

“Would you rather be sitting in a hotel room in Nairobi?” Sheila asked.

For the fifth time, Barbara waved flies away from her rice.

“Went to see the witch doctor of Thika, old dear,” Carr said to Sheila. “Barbara and young Irwin here came with me. Actually, that’s where Juma attached himself to us, too.”

“Was she encouraging?” Sheila’s gold bracelets jangled as she ate.

“Right on. Straightaway, she said I was looking for something I hadn’t lost. When I said it was a place, she said I must go south where there are hills and a river.”

“That’s where we are,” Sheila said.

“She said the people who used to live here want us to find their place, so they’ll be remembered.”

“Did she say we will find it?”

“Definitely yes.”

Sheila said, “At this point, encouragement from any source is welcome.”

In the cook tent, a tape of a contemporary Italian love song was playing. Juma and Winston and Raffles and the five or six other young men behind the tent were lustily and perfectly singing the lyrics, in Italian.

Fletch couldn’t be sure if some of the bird noises he was hearing were from the tape or from the jungle around them. They, too, matched or followed the music perfectly.

“Barbara? Stand up, please?”

After dinner they had returned to their camp chairs in front of the dining awning. Carr had poured them each a Three Barrels brandy.

Juma appeared dressed now with just a cloth wrapped high around his waist. He was carrying an unfolded cotton cloth about four feet by five and a half feet.

Even in the candlelight, the reds, greens, yellows of both cloths were bright.

“Ah, Juma, the perfect solution!” Sheila said. “A kanga!”

Juma ignored her.

When Barbara stood up, Juma wrapped the cloth around her, under her armpits, over her breasts, and tied it to itself, simply.

It was a full, free-hanging dress.

Barbara looked down at herself. “Far out!”

“Beats jodhpurs,” Fletch said.

Juma slipped it off her and folded it lengthwise. He put it around her hips like a sling. Holding the two ends together with one hand, he ran his finger against both sides of the cloth up against her waist. He used that point as the fold. He tucked the top end of the cloth into the cloth itself against her other hip.

It was a skirt.

“That’s all you need wear around here.”

“Nothing on top?” Barbara asked.

“I can get you some necklaces, too, if you like.”

Again he slipped the cloth off her. This time he folded it lengthwise in quarters and tucked it around her waist again, finding the fold with his fingers.

It was a short skirt.

“Very cool,” Juma said.

Looking below the skirt to her thighs, knees in ski pants, Barbara said, “I’ll say.”

“It goes well with your ski boots,” Fletch said.

“Also,” Juma said, “as you see, a man can wear a kanga. Stand up, please, Fletch.”

Fletch put his glasss of brandy on the ground beside his chair and stood up.

Juma draped the kanga over Fletch’s shoulders. “Keeps off the sunbite,” Juma said.

Then he folded the kanga in quarters again and using the same method tucked it around Fletch’s waist.

There was the sound of a burp.

Holding the glass to his face with both hands, a monkey was finishing Fletch’s brandy.

“Hold on.” Carr got up abruptly. “Better restrain that fellow until the brandy wears off.” He began to approach the monkey slowly. “No telling what he might do.”

Barbara said, “Just like your father, Fletch.”

Juma tugged the kanga off Fletch’s waist and handed it to Barbara.

“For me? A present?”

“Yes,” Juma said. “I got it for you. So you will be dressed right, and be cool.”

“How nice,” Sheila said.

The monkey had put down the glass. He scratched the top of his head.

“Thank you, Juma.”

When Carr was almost ready to pounce on the monkey, the monkey suddenly laughed and darted away. He scrambled up the banyan tree.

Hands on hips, Carr watched the monkey climb high into the tree. “Now what do we do?”

“Can you see him?” Barbara asked.

Using only one hand, chattering wildly, the monkey was swinging from a branch ten meters above the ground.

“Come down here, you silly bastard,” Carr said. “Do you suppose we can coax him down with a little more brandy?”

The monkey scrambled even higher. He was now fifteen meters off the ground. Putting one foot in front of the other, holding his arms out for balance, he teetered out a long branch like a tightrope walker. Looking down at them, he chattered a fairly long speech.

“He’ll hurt himself,” Sheila said.

“More than likely,” Carr agreed.

“The whiskey made the monkey drunk, you see,” Juma said.

The monkey stepped off the tree branch backward. He caught himself with both hands.

Using both arms, the monkey began swinging from the tree branch, swinging higher and higher.

“Oh, dear,” Carr said. “I’m afraid he means to give us a flying lesson.”

At the highest point of his swing, with no destination discernable, the monkey let go of the branch. He went up into the air feet first in a perfect arc.

Carr sprinted forward. “Can we catch him?”

In a great puff of dust, the monkey landed on his back a meter in front of Carr.

In the inflection of the disappointed, the monkey said, “Ohhhhh.”

“Bastard knocked himself out,” Carr said. “That’ll teach him to fly too far too high too fast.”

They were all looking down at the monkey unconscious on the ground.

“He will have a headache,” Juma prophesied.

Fletch said to Barbara, “Just like my father?!?”