The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Read online

  The two Land Rovers inched ahead for half a mile and stopped, after which everyone climbed out and stood in a group waiting, cameras ready.

  "This light," said Mrs. Pollifax, gesturing widely toward the sky. "It so reminds me of the light in southern France. The same luminous quality. Has anyone been in France lately?"

  No one appeared to pay her the slightest attention; John Steeves stared inscrutably into the distance; Mclntosh was busy with his light meter; Mr. Kleiber grunted noncommittally, while Amy Lovecraft simply ignored her. Only Cyrus turned and looked at her. "No," he said. "Have you?"

  Having never visited France in her life, Mrs. Pollifax found herself figuratively pinned to a wall and was happy to be rescued by the elephants. "Here they come," she cried.

  The elephants emerged from a copse of trees and lumbered toward them, trunks swinging. They crossed the road only twenty feet away from them without so much as a glance at their audience. The baby elephants brought a laugh from Lisa. "They're darling!"

  Satisfied, they climbed into the Land Rovers and drove on. Gradually the topography began to fold in upon itself, nurturing seams and hollows and small hills. The Land Rover coasted down an incline to a dried-up brook bed surrounded by tangles of thorn bush and twisted roots. It stopped and Julian climbed out. "Here," he called, beckoning, and when they joined him it was to see the imprint of a lion paw in the dust.

  The Land Rovers drove ahead in low gear, no one speaking now. Cautiously they rounded a wide curve, slowed as they approached a grassless area beside the road, and—Mrs. Pollifax caught her breath in awe— there lay two lions stretched out sleeping in the sun. The Land Rover coasted to a stop only eight feet away from the lions; beside Mrs. Pollifax the guard leaned forward and swung his rifle into horizontal position, his eyes watchful.

  "A lioness and a male," whispered Julian.

  As the second Land Rover drew up behind them the lioness lifted her magnificent head, yawned and rose to her feet. She stretched, looked them over without interest and sniffed the air. The male stirred and rose to his feet too, massive, nearly nine feet in length, and Mrs. Pollifax held her breath as he stared unblinkingly at them. Remembering her camera just in time, she snapped a picture only a second before the two beautiful tawny creatures slipped away into the grass and vanished.

  "Lion," breathed Mrs. Pollifax, and felt that her cup was full to the brim.

  At noon they came to Lufupa camp, which was small —for weekend people only, Julian said—and not yet open for the season. The camp occupied a point of land where the Kafue River curved and broadened, smooth as a millpond in the noon sun. They were to lunch here, Julian said, pointing to a picnic table under the acacia trees.

  Mrs. Pollifax had now removed three of her layers of clothing and was happy to sit in the shade. It was a tranquil scene: not far away two men were painting chairs a bright blue in the grass, and mattresses were being aired in the sun. Up on the roof of the largest hut an old man was spreading out fresh thatch and tying it down with wire, like shingles. Finding herself next to Mr. Kleiber at the picnic table, she turned to him with a warm smile. "Do you know much about guns, Mr. Kleiber? I'm wondering if you can tell me what sort of rifle our guard carries."

  The man serving them their lunch chose this moment to place in front of Mr. Kleiber a plate of chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and fresh tomatoes. Mclntosh, seated across the table, answered instead. "A 3006, I'd say."

  "Oh—you know guns," she said brightly.

  "Or possibly a 3004," Kleiber said with his mouth full.

  "A 3004," Crispin told them from the end of the table.

  Very inconclusive, thought Mrs. Pollifax, and decided there was something far too relaxing about all this fresh air and that an evening campfire might be the better place for tactful interrogations.

  After lunch they strolled upriver a short distance, with guards at their front and rear, and watched hippos bathing in the shallows. This especially pleased Cyrus because there had been no ox-peckers on the backs of the hippos they'd seen at Chunga camp.

  "Ox-peckers?" echoed Mrs. Pollifax.

  "Tick-birds," he explained, and pointed. "Find them on rhinos' backs too. Feed on their ticks and conveniently warn them of danger." His glance moved to John Steeves, who was helping Lisa remove her sweater, and he frowned. "Chap really seems to be zeroing in on Lisa. Very confidently too."

  Mrs. Pollifax smiled. "If there's one thing John Steeves has, I'm sure it's confidence."

  "Seems a decent enough chap," said Reed. "Just difficult to picture as a son-in-law. I mean—yurts?"

  "Oh, I don't think you need worry about that."

  "No?" said Reed, looking surprised. "Together all the time."

  "There are," said Mrs. Pollifax, "undercurrents."

  "I'm overlooking something?"

  "You've been watching Steeves and not your daughter. He's with her, but she's not with him, if you follow me. It's a matter of the eyes. Glances."

  "You astonish me," said Cyrus, and turning to her he added accusingly, "Matter of fact, you've astonished me ever since we met."

  Mrs. Pollifax found herself blushing—really it was very tiresome, she'd not blushed in years—and fielded this statement by turning to Mr. Kleiber, who was looking distinctly bored by the hippos. "Still no crocodiles, Mr. Kleiber?"

  He looked startled. "Not yet, no. Dear me, I hope soon, though. What a hot sun, I think I've had enough of walking."

  She thought that Mr. Kleiber had begun thawing out a little today; the pinched look was no longer so pronounced, and occasionally he smiled at something said by the group. He appeared to like Mclntosh, whose reticence matched his own, and when something unusual occurred he would look first to Mclntosh, rock a little on his heels while he waited to catch his eye, and then deliver himself of a pithy comment in his dry, sarcastic voice. He had begun to tolerate Amy Lovecraft too, no longer looking frost-bitten when she took his arm and asked if he minded her walking with him.

  "Crocodiles you will see at Moshe tomorrow," said Julian, overhearing him. "The camp is very open, right on the river, and the crocodiles sun themselves on the banks."

  They turned to go back and Mrs. Pollifax fell into step beside Cyrus. Never having walked behind Mr. Kleiber before, she was amused now to see what an odd walk he had: a strut, she thought, with a stutter. He walked with his shoulders rigid, back straight and head high, but his right foot toed in slightly and threw the rhythm just a shade off balance, like one instrument in a band playing a beat behind the others.

  "Looks like company up ahead," said Cyrus.

  A shiny beige Land Rover was parked next to the safari jeeps, and three men, all black, were talking to the workmen. As they drew nearer, one of them climbed back into the car and the other two could be seen shaking hands and saying goodbye. The man in the car leaned forward and gestured to them to hurry.

  Reed said abruptly, "Chap on the left in the green shirt is the man who was asking for you at the hotel. In Lusaka, when I was checking out."

  Startled, Mrs. Pollifax said, "Are you sure?"

  "Never forget a face. Shall I give him a shout?"

  "Oh yes, do," she said, hurrying.

  Reed began to shout, and Mrs. Pollifax waved frantically, but the two men gave them only a quick glance and then jumped into the Land Rover and the car sped away. A moment later it had vanished among the trees.

  "Had his chance," said Cyrus. "Muffed it."

  "But they must have heard you," protested Mrs. Pollifax, "and if they were deaf they would have seen me waving, because they turned and looked."

  Approaching the Lufupa workers Cyrus said, "From the city, were they?"

  "Oh yes, sir," the elder said, beaming. "They did not know the camp is closed. Three gentlemen from Lusaka."

  "Didn't they wonder what we're doing here?" "Oh yes, missis. I told them you are all from Kafwala camp, on organized safari."

  Odd, thought Mrs. Pollifax, frowning, very odd, and could not quite shrug off
the sensation that if Cyrus was accurate, then forces were in motion that she did not understand. Turning to him she said stubbornly, "I don't —I really don't—see how on earth you can be so certain it was the same man."

  "Could be wrong," he said fairly. She looked at him quickly. "Are you often wrong?" "No. Study too many faces in court. Habit of mine." She nodded. Nevertheless he'd admitted that he could be wrong and she clung to this, because otherwise she was left with the uneasy mystery of a man who wanted to see her in Lusaka and then, catching up with her, jumped into a car to avoid being seen.

  Some hours later Mrs. Pollifax, happily showering back at camp, was tempted to break into song again. Life in the bush, she thought, certainly stripped one of inconsequentials: she had been hot and dusty for hours and now the cold water splashing over her heated skin brought a delightful tingly sensation. She had been out-of-doors since dawn, and soon there would be a feast around the campfire for which she already had a ravenous appetite. She wondered when she had felt so free . . . perhaps never . . . and running through her mind like a melody were little vignettes of the road at midday: the hot sun, dust, the orange trunk of a thorn tree as well as another tree they'd seen bearing long torpedo-shaped gray fruit that Julian had called a sausage tree. She had also learned to say thank you in Nyanga—zikomo kuambeia—and at Lufupa . . .

  But it was better not to think of Lufupa, she reminded herself. The memory of it raised disturbing questions because they set in motion doubts that eventually, no matter how she reasoned them away, returned full circle to Cyrus. It was Cyrus, after all, who had told her that a man had asked for her at the hotel after she had left, and it was Cyrus who insisted now that it was this same man they'd seen at Lufupa camp, but she had only his word for there being such a man at all. What was she to make of it? If Cyrus was Aristotle . . . she shivered at this demonic thought and turned off the water and reached for a towel. But if Cyrus was Aristotle, it didn't make sense his manufacturing a Mr. X who was looking for her, and if he had not fabricated this stranger—if there really was such a man . . .

  "There you are!" said a man's voice suddenly, and Mrs. Pollifax jumped.

  Outside the shower hut Lisa's voice replied. "Hello, John, I was just looking for a sunny spot to dry my hair."

  "Where is everyone?"

  "Oh—around." Lisa's voice was vague. "Mrs. Pollifax was waiting to take a shower when I came out but she's gone now. Dad and Chanda are over at the kitchen watching the chef start dinner on that funny stove they have here. Mr. Kleiber pricked a finger and Tom is assuring him that he's not going to get a rare African disease. Mclntosh is napping and—"

  "Enough, enough!" he said with mock despair. "What I really came to ask you is why you've been avoiding me since lunch. It made me wonder. Look here, was it a shock to you when I said I'd been married once, very briefly, years ago?"

  "A shock? Good heavens, no, John!"

  "What did you think?"

  Mrs. Pollifax, torn between announcing herself and listening, opted for the latter and continued dressing.

  "I thought," Lisa was saying slowly, "if I remember correctly, that I wasn't surprised it lasted only six months. I thought you must be a rather difficult person to be married to."

  "A rather difficult—! And here I was hoping—what on earth makes you say that?"

  "Well—there's something secret about you, isn't there, John? Something concealed, a little room somewhere marked 'Keep Out'?"

  There was a long silence and then Steeves said lightly, "This is rather a setback for me, Lisa, I was hoping to ask you to marry me when the safari ends."

  "Me?"

  "Did you really think I went about squiring beautiful young girls so attentively every day?"

  "No—that is, surely you were just being friendly? John, I'm terribly flattered but let's not talk about this any more. We shouldn't do at all, you know."

  "Why wouldn't we 'do at all,' as you put it?"

  "Because . . . well, you don't really have room in your life for marriage, do you?"

  "I could change, you know," he said. "I don't have to go batting around the world forever."

  "Change into what?" she asked, and then, indignantly, "And why should you? You're a beautiful person, John, just as you are. You give a great many people pleasure by doing all the wonderfully dashing things they daydream of doing. It's marvelous."

  "And very lonely," he pointed out.

  At this moment Mrs. Pollifax decided that it was more than time to announce herself: she dropped her shoe on the cement slab and said, "Oh dear!" and continued dropping things and picking them up again to give Lisa and Steeves time to adjust to her presence. When she walked out of the shower hut John had vanished and Lisa was folding up her chair. She turned and smiled faintly. "I suppose you heard all?"

  "It was impossible not to," admitted Mrs. Pollifax. "I waited as long as I could, but it was growing very damp and cold in there. It's nearing sunset time, I think."

  "Yes, time for sweaters again. Thank you for—well, rescuing me." She fell into step beside her, absently carrying the chair along with her. "Isn't life strange?" she asked. "I read John's latest book this winter and his photograph occupied the entire back of the bookjacket and I used to look at it—those sad eyes practically stabbing my soul—and I'd say, 'Now there's a man, if only I could meet someone like that.' "

  "And now you have," said Mrs. Pollifax, giving her an interested glance, "and you find a room inside of him marked 'Keep Out'?"

  "You really did hear everything." Lisa sighed. "I wonder what made me say that. John strikes me—now that I've met him—as a character in a very contemporary novel, the kind that begins and ends in the same way, with the hero staring into his scotch and soda and about to leave another woman behind as he goes off to a new adventure. He seems—caught by something. And terribly sad about it."

  "Caught," repeated Mrs. Pollifax musingly. "A strange word to use."

  "People do get trapped, I suppose. Inside of images, all kinds of things. But he is a lovely person, isn't he?"

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded. "A very unusual man, yes, very charming and—as you suspected—very much a loner. But I think you're looking for someone a little cozier, aren't you?"

  Lisa burst out laughing. "Cozier?"

  "Someone warm and caring and devoted. Less complicated." She reached her door and opened it. "It is sometimes," she said, "very difficult to remain faithful to oneself."

  "Oh, 1 do hope you like Dad as much as he likes you," Lisa blurted out, and then stopped, blushing. "Oh dear, I didn't mean—What on earth am I doing carrying this chair with me?" she asked, noticing it for the first time. "I really must change for dinner. Which in this case," she added, laughing, "means removing one sweater and adding another, or changing from jeans to corduroys!"

  The sun had already set when Mrs. Pollifax descended the hill to join the group around the campfire, and the single lantern hanging from the post had been lighted. The flames of the fire held shades of blue in them tonight, and the wood crackled merrily.

  "You missed an egret," Cyrus told her with a welcoming smile. "Incredible sight."

  "And a family of monkeys scolding us from the trees," put in Tom Henry. "They were certainly cross at finding us here again, this must be their playground."

  "A dozen at least," added Lisa.

  "God I'm hungry," said Amy Lovecraft. She was wearing still another new outfit tonight, a blue Jacquard turtleneck and dark-blue slacks over which she'd thrown a fleecy red jacket. Mrs. Pollifax wondered how many suitcases she traveled with, and decided it was better not to know.

  Julian said, "I've given orders that dinner be served early tonight—before seven—because everyone is so hungry."

  "Marvelous," said Amy, pronouncing it mav-lus.

  "And what time is it now?"

  Julian glanced at his watch and frowned. "The men are late, they should have begun setting the table by now. I'd better go up and see what the matter is."

  "Yes
, do," said Amy. "Frankly we're all starving."

  Julian half rose from his chair and then froze and fell back in astonishment. Following his gaze Mrs. Pollifax saw three men move out of the darkness toward the campfire, silently, like phantoms rising out of the mist. At first she didn't understand, thinking them Kafwala workers whom she'd not seen before, and then the firelight picked out the long barrel of a rifle, and as the three black men moved to surround them she felt the first taste of fear in her throat.

  Steeves said with a gasp, "I say, who the hell—what is this?"

  They had arrived so silently, their steps muted by the sound of the rapids, that Mrs. Pollifax found it difficult to believe in their reality. It was like opening one's door in July to find Hallo weeners on the doorstep. Then Julian, looking grim, said, "Nguti?" and she knew these men were real and dangerous.

  In excellent English the leader said, "If you move we shoot. We wish only hostages. You," he said, pointing to Mrs. Pollifax. "You—walk over here."

  "Now wait a minute," said Cyrus, starting to rise from his chair, but one of the men reached out and pushed him down.

  "And you," said their spokesman, pointing to Amy Lovecraft.

  Mrs. Pollifax stood up, acutely aware of how snug the circle around the campfire looked. As she reluctantly crossed that circle, about to leave it, she became equally aware of each person she passed: of John Steeves looking furious, of Willem Kleiber shrinking back in his chair as if to make himself invisible, Lisa open-mouthed and plainly frightened, and Tom Henry studying the faces of the men with guns. When she reached the leader and turned, she saw that Cyrus was looking so outraged that she would have smiled if she hadn't felt so much like crying. It was, after all, dinnertime, and she was hungry and cold and she had the distinct feeling that she was not going to be fed.

  And then Amy Lovecraft came up behind her and the leader said to his confederate, "Take them—quickly," and turning back he spoke across the fire to Julian. "You will remain very still, please. Your men on the hill have all been locked into the kitchen, your marconi is broken and your Land Rovers put out of action. I will have my gun on you, watching. 1 warn you, don't try to follow. Don't move."