They say write what you know. So my novel is doing this instead...
The WWII East Africa Campaign
Toughened men of various nationalities arrived and spirited me away by caravan through what is now Tanzania and into northern Kenya where my father was waiting. Father decided that we would be going over land, by the inland route and not the coastal route. Passage by sea was possible, but in 1940 ships were being boarded and searched by both sides, if they weren’t simply bombed indiscriminately from the sky above. The inland route wasn’t an easy trip in those days, not that it is even now. We took about two months riding on horseback or in carts, sweating, getting harassed and eaten and infected by tsetse flies, and fighting amongst ourselves as we hid from the Axis troops that we knew were out there and which would be looking for groups like ours. We must have looked like the French Foreign Legion with our white faces with a smattering of African and Indian and Arab ones. When we set out, we were thirty men strong. If our rag-tag group of armed men on horseback and meagre carts was spied by Axis troops or planes, we’d surely be fired upon. They’d assume that we were up to no good, and from their perspective they’d be correct.
...
Tsetse flies
There
was a discussion of turning back, but there was a feeling that we were
in the middle of them and turning in any direction would make no
difference other than to keep us from our destination for longer. And
everyone in our party held me specifically responsible for our being in
the middle of this scourge. If it weren’t for me and my boyhood desire
to play war, none of them would be in this predicament.
Of course I had no desire to play war, boyish or otherwise, but Horst
was correct: it didn’t really matter. This was my fault. The sounds of
the hyena that were following us, waiting, reminded me. The vultures
that circled above us predicted an unfriendly future. We rode on for
what seemed like forever.
...
Kilimanjaro
While the mountain had lost its majesty for me, when we came
across a lazy herd of giraffes I was again captivated by life. I had seen giraffes before, but they seemed
to be what my despondent psyche needed.
I was calmed and comforted by them as we sauntered by on our
horses. They lazily flicked their ears
at us and chewed leaves and didn’t pay us much in the way of consideration. Dembe and Lebna didn’t give the giraffes a
second look. It would seem that all
manner of things had lost their majesty for those men.
...
Leaving sleeping cats lie
I
took the coffee gratefully and drank as if it was the cure for terror.
It was marvelous. I had another cup and then went and urinated next to
one of the baobabs. Then I saw the lion. He was lying there lazy and
lifted his head a little when he heard my stream hit the ground.
Instinctively, I cut off the water-works and stood there very quietly
looking at the lion that was no more than ten yards
away. I knew that making eye contact with him was probably a very bad
idea. My heart raced as I stood there with the front of my pants open
staring into the eyes of the lion. As I started to back away with my
pants still open, he roared. If you have never heard a lion roar from
ten yards away, you should go stand around at the zoo until you have the
opportunity. It reverberated in my chest, seemingly interrupting my
heart’s own cadence with its discordant pulsation. The lion stood and
charged at me.
...
Tedious research
So, the book is partially set in the Horn of Africa in 1940. As a result I spent countless hours researching the East African Campaign and the Italian expansion of its empire under Mussolini into Ethiopia. Hours of reading, sketching, cross checking dates. Then, I write this:
The Ambassador Hotel was a marvelous sprawling bungalow of a
building set atop a lush green lawn. We
rode our horses up the driveway past all the automobiles that lined its
side. Automobiles were still fairly new and the
Ambassador didn’t see fit to lose any of its expansive lawns for something as
pedestrian as a parking lot. So the rich
people’s vehicles littered the side of the driveway. Blue (his horse) pooped on the way up, so it was probably
a draw as to which mode of transportation the management preferred its
clientele to operate on hotel grounds.
...
Changing Tactics
That was also the day I learned the word Ghurkha.
...
Making Tea
For all of you who complain I never write romance (you know who you are) this is for you:
I joined Francie at the sink with the copper kettle in order to fill it and make some tea. For a brief moment the sides of our hips touched quite by accident and it was if magic passed from her and into me, disrupting my heart and rendering my speech faulty. I lingered beside her momentarily, unsure if I could move. She moved to the side and smiled at me, which felt like the final straw that would stop my heart completely, but yet I lingered. “Excuse me,” she said and she took the last few remaining bowls from the sink to provide me room to fill the kettle. I stared into the empty sink for a moment. She noticed me struggling and turned the water on for me. Awakened, I slid the kettle under the stream.
“Well, have a seat Mr. Mouthpiece,” Mother said to Graast. I suppose he was her lawyer to insult, so I didn’t interject. He understood her Alzheimer’s and was therefore more patient. He also understood that she (and by extension me) was the wealthiest client he’d ever meet. He smiled warmly and sat with Mother. Francie joined the three of us for tea, and I have no idea what the conversation was.
...
Making Time for the Ladies
In those days I took my
midday meal with Mother. She had degraded
before our eyes. In the time it took to
build the Barn, and all of its hidden subfloors, Mother had forgotten how to
dress and feed herself. We converted the
parlour of the house into her bedchamber and had the handymen build a door into
it off the main hallway, where otherwise someone could peer into her room from
there as they passed. She had privacy in
a parlour that was made to look just like her bedchamber upstairs. Her bed was placed where the pile of round,
throwing stones once was.
The handymen also installed
a main floor water closet and tub where Mother could bath without needing to
climb stairs. The foreman proffered the
idea when I was directing him to replicate her bedchamber in the parlour. It was a stroke of genius, because within a
month there was no possible way Mother could climb stairs. A month following that, Francie and I made
our bedchamber where Mother’s once was.
That was a fact that the
older nurse didn’t favour. She took up
the matter with Doctor Greene who took the matter up with me. Apparently it was inappropriate for Francie
to take up house with me while providing care to Mother. I remember the good Doctor had trouble
broaching the subject with me. I
listened to him bumble and moan for a moment, thinking he had more bad news
about mother. I was relieved when he
said, “Nurse Farrington has an issue with your relationship with Francine. She believes I should too.”
As Dembe noted, I had become
more and more like my father, for good and bad.
“Replace her,” I said.
“But, I…”
“Do you share her
misgivings?” I asked.
“I am too well compensated
to have misgivings,” he said.
“Then replace her, and make
sure I don’t see her again.”
And he did. I never saw cranky nurse Farrington
again. On the day Dembe accepted the
name Harder Security, a new nurse was
feeding mother her midday meal. She was in
her early twenties, beautiful, and African.
She smiled shyly at me as I sat with her as Mother ate. She listened intently to me as I spoke to my
Mother about the weather, the meal, and the progress we were making with the
winery. Each time I looked at the
beautiful Ghanaian nurse, she smiled. It
was fairly obvious that the good Doctor Greene intended to prostitute as many
pretty nurses as it took to keep his fairly rich compensation package. It never occurred to me to set him straight.
“The vintner says it looks
like the majority of the vines can be saved,” I said. She looked at me and chewed her food that the
pretty Ghanaian was spooning into her.
It looked to be runny porridge or rice pudding. Whatever it was, chewing appeared to be redundant. “The Barn is finished,” I said. She looked at the nurse who feed her another
glop of mush. “It seems Dembe has
invited the first guest to review our operation,” I said. She said nothing, chewed, and looked vacant –
most likely anything she was seeing was in her mind’s eye. “Hopefully he will become a customer. Dembe is hopeful, but I’m not sure. I haven’t spoken with the man yet.” She smiled for no reason. No reason related to what I was saying at
least.
“Have you spoken to Jeremy?”
she asked. I sat there confused, and
said nothing. I had discovered the hard
way that she preferred me interloping in her delusions than interrupting them
with logic or current events.
“I haven’t for a while,” I
said by way of compromise.
“He is planning to go away
to university. You should think about
going with him. This is no place for a
young man. Too many awful things are
going to start happening.”
“That is good advice
Mother,” I said. The young nurse smiled
at me. I smiled back, politely rather
than flirtatiously. The last thing I wanted
was to anger Francie by creating the potential for any kind of triangle –
perceived or real.
“America is where to go,
before war comes.”
“Indeed.”
“Listen to me!” Her eyes were bulging and gruel and spittle
was running out of the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t want you to die. I need
to tell you not to die.” She started to
yell and work herself into a lather, “Don’t die. Don’t die.
Timothy, don’t die on me and leave me here.” The nurse stood up and did what she could to
console her. It made matters worse. I noticed how short the nurse’s uniform was
and how long her legs were. She was
bending to console Mother and wipe her face and was just nearly reaching the
end of the uniform’s ability to preserve her modesty. It diverted my attention from my yelping,
thrashing mother, who wasn’t my dignified, stoic mother anymore.
“I’m not going to die,” I
said calmly.
“You’re already dead,” she
whispered. It put a chill into my soul.
