White Dog Fell From the Sky (14 page)

Once upon a time, she couldn’t have
imagined a day without him, and now she shuddered to think of his hands touching her
breasts, shuddered to think how she’d taken off her clothes while his eyes
traveled the geography of her nakedness.

What scrap heap in the world could hold all
the loves once felt, now vanished?

She set the sculpted head back on the table,
got up, brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed. The first issue of
Botswana Notes
and Records
was on the bedside table. Her boss from the Ministry of Local
Government and Lands had asked her to have a look at it before she completed the
position paper on land use and the San people. She checked the table of contents and
turned to an article about the hunting practices of the !Kung San. When a man is ready
to hunt, she read, he smears a nerve toxin from the pupae of a small beetle along the
upper shaft and point of an arrow, which is then wound with sinew and hardened over a
fire; if he nicks himself with the poisoned arrow tip, he dies.

The San hunt in pairs. They position
themselves downwind from the herd and choose an animal. The stalker moves forward while
the other man watches and gives hand signals. When the stalker is within fifteen meters
or so, he rises and shoots an arrow into the animal’s stomach. Depending on the
freshness of the poison, it can take one to three days for an animal to die. The hunters
see by the spoor when the animal is weakening. A gemsbok will grow sick unto death,
stagger, and fall to its knees.

She lay the article facedown on her chest.
Once, she’d held a Bushman arrow in her hands. The husband/wife anthropologist
couple in Lobatse had showed her the arrow. Its head was made of fencing wire, pounded
flat, the shaft was made of reed, the haft about ten centimeters long. A bone joint fit
into the shaft and was bound with sinew to the head. It was very light, a thing of
beauty.

She’d drafted this paper about land
use, knowing far too little. Because she had a degree, because she could put words down
on paper, she was helping to make decisions about people’s lives she knew next to
nothing about. Of what possible benefit were her words to them?

She called Horse once more. Magoo, who thought
it was a call to a second supper, rushed in from the garden. She went back to bed and
turned the page to another article, about the great Sechele, chief of the Bakwena, who
was born in the early 1800s. She read about how Sechele’s father had been murdered
by his half brother, Moruakgomo, a villainously ambitious man. Moruakgomo had also
murdered his half-witted brother, Segokotlo, his last obstacle to power. The brothers
went out in the bush together, and Moruakgomo told his simple-minded brother that they
were going to pray for locusts to come so their people would not die of hunger.
“Here,” said Moruakgomo. “Here is where the gods live.” Poor
Segokotlo bent down to put his head into a fresh ant bear hole, and Moruakgomo cut off
his head with a hand axe.

Power and cruelty. Cruelty and power. The
same old story. She turned off the light and lay there. In the darkness, tiny soft
footsteps fell on the floor, closer, closer. She knew the sound, but somehow the steps
filled her with dread. Mr. Magoo jumped on the bed and stood on her stomach, his eyes
staring into the dark like a haunt. “Where’s Horse?” she asked. He
rubbed his chin on hers and purred, his paws imprinting her throat and chest.

The next day, Muriel stopped by to ask how
she was doing and to invite her to Thanksgiving dinner that night. “We’re
having a few people over. Just a spur of the moment thing.”

She pictured herself there solo, wearing
some brave little festive outfit, surrounded by couples. “Thanks, dearie, but I
think I won’t.” She wanted to tell Muriel why, but it felt too wearisome to
explain. Some shred of dignity she was trying to hang onto, and she’d lose it in
the process of explaining.

She left work early and drove to the co-op
for food. This would be the first Thanksgiving in her life that she wouldn’t
celebrate in some fashion. In the street, she ran into Hasse.

“What are you doing out of work so
early?” Those eyes, full of irony and sparkle.

“I suddenly had an impulse to cook
something resembling a Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I’d invite you to join us, but
I don’t think you’d enjoy yourself.”

“You’ve got that
right.”

“How are you?”

“I’m on my own now,” she
said. But he already knew. She saw it in his eyes.

“You’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “How
about you?”

“I’m well enough,” he
said. But he wasn’t, and he knew it. He’d compromised one time too many, and
he’d become a compromise
rather than a man. He saw that she knew
this, and they parted. But not before she saw the question mark on his face.

She knew what he was asking, and she
answered with a quick kiss on his cheek. “You’re a wonderful man,” she
said. “But no.”

To the right of the Presidential Hotel, an
old man sat on a flattened cardboard box. His shirt was disintegrating, his pants held
up by a piece of twine. He was making tin boxes out of large sheets of metal that
sounded like thunder when he cut and shaped them. His hands were as twisted as trees
braced against gales. Near him, a young man sitting on a blanket was selling wormy wood
sculptures.

Alice headed to the co-op, where most items
she had in mind wouldn’t be on the shelves. She walked down the aisles, looking
for canned cranberry sauce. It was a long shot. All of a sudden, there was Lawrence,
standing in front of a can of peaches, studying the label. She thought of rushing for
the door, but she told herself not to be a coward.

“I wouldn’t buy those
peaches,” she said over his shoulder. “Probably been there since the Boer
War.”

He whirled around. His face said
I
thought you’d left the country
. And then he smiled and kept smiling. He
couldn’t stop smiling. They talked about their work, about his mother who’d
been sick.

“You probably thought I’d left
by now,” she said. “I have no immediate plans. How about you?” It
sounded as though she thought Gaborone wasn’t big enough for the two of them.

“No plans beyond the end of my
contract next year,” he said. “Then we’ll see.”

We?
Then she remembered he’d
always had trouble with the word “I.”

He picked up the can of the peaches
he’d been staring at, thought better of it, and put it back. “Good to see
you. You look well.” He started down the aisle and turned and took a step back
toward her. “I’m sorry, Alice.”

“I’m sorry too.” It came
out sounding as though she blamed him, not what she felt. For a millisecond, she thought
of asking him for
Thanksgiving dinner, but she thought it would only
make them both miserable. She watched him walk the rest of the way down the aisle and
through the door and out into the sunshine. Whatever food he’d come for,
he’d decided against, or forgotten.

She dropped the can of peaches into her
basket. Nearby was some ancient pumpkin pie filling which she grabbed along with four
cans of fish for the cats. She paid at the cash register and came out into the furnace
of sun. She passed a man selling ostrich egg necklaces and bought one for her mother,
and then filet mignon at the butcher, all the time replaying the words Lawrence had
spoken. The heat had flattened the mall into dust. Her eyes shimmered and wobbled. Her
bearings were gone, her head pounded. She felt drunk, disoriented, as raw as the meat
wrapped in butcher paper.

When she noticed her friend Peter Daigle
walking ahead of her, she hesitated.

“Peter!” she finally called out.
He didn’t hear.

“Peter!” she called again.

He turned. He was wearing a khaki-colored
safari suit, one kneesock slipped down around his ankles, his bald head burned by the
sun.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m down for a couple days.
Here for the big city lights.”

“Where? Where are they?”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” he
laughed.

“Happy Thanksgiving back.”

“I’m having canned herring in my
hotel room,” he said. “… unless you’d like to join me for
dinner.”

“Why don’t you come over to my
place? I’m cooking. By the way, had you heard that Lawren …”

“I heard from Muriel and
Eric.”

“He and I just ran into each other in
the co-op. First time in a couple of months.”

She thought his eyes said,
Yeah, and you
look like crap
. “I’d love to come,” he said. “What can
I bring?”

“Your own handsome self.”

When he arrived that evening, he kissed her on
the cheek and handed her a bottle of wine. He’d changed into a shirt and pulled up
his socks for the occasion. “Okay, I’ll just say it and get it over
with,” he said. “I never thought the two of you belonged together.”
They walked toward the living room and paused in the wide doorway. “I don’t
want to trash him.”

“Oh, go ahead.”

“I never could imagine the two of you
in bed.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re way higher intensity
than he is,” he said. “He seems half asleep most of the time. And
there’s something a little slippery about him. I never can figure out what
he’s really thinking. Anyway, the single life suits you. You’re looking
well.”

“Thanks.” But he was lying.
She’d aged ten years in the months since Lawrence had departed. “Want to
open the wine?” They went into the kitchen, and she passed him the corkscrew and a
couple of glasses. She’d cooked a stroganoff with beef, bacon, white wine, sour
cream. The rice was done. She turned on the burner under the frozen peas. He stuck his
nose into the stroganoff pot. “Smells great.”

“Sorry it’s not
turkey.”

“I don’t even like turkey. How
did we ever get stuck with that for Thanksgiving? Did you know that the Pilgrims ate
swans?”

“I’m glad we don’t. By the
way, I have no appetizer. We’ll just eat, okay?”

“Are you apologizing?”

“No. Yes.” She stood over the
stove, about to dish up the food, made a sudden movement, and knocked her wineglass to
the floor. The glass shattered, and red wine splashed over his shoes and her bare
feet.

“Don’t move,” he said. He
put his arms around her and lifted her away from the shards and set her down. He swept
up, grabbed a sponge and paper towels and mopped up. “There might still be some.
You’d better get shoes.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“That’s not a pumpkin pie I
see …”

“It is.”

“You made it? I can’t remember
when I last had pumpkin pie.” They sat down at the table. Conversation was
halting, awkward. Not knowing what else to talk about, she asked how he’d come to
Botswana.

“I was a religious nut,” he
said, smiling.

“As in converting the pagan
masses?”

“More or less. I was sent out here for
two years, in the grand missionary tradition, with a small band of believers.” He
took a gulp of wine.

“And?”

“And after two months, I thought, I
don’t even like these people. And this whole concept of salvation. Suddenly it
made no sense. So I bailed and found a job with Shell Oil. I’ve been here ever
since. Strange isn’t it, the way things can change overnight?”

“Yes.”

“So what about you?” he asked.
“Have you moved on?”

She’d always thought of Peter as a bit
of a galoot, but it wasn’t true. He was more like a seatmate on a Greyhound bus
who has kind eyes and is willing to listen. It surprised her.

“Not really. But I will in
time.” They finished up the first course, and she poured him coffee and gave him a
slab of pie.

“So what happened?” he
asked.

“I don’t really know how to
explain it. Everything revolved around Lawrence and his work. I became bored,
inattentive. His attentions turned elsewhere … I guess you’d say it was
mutual, although it didn’t feel like it at the time.”

“Well, let me say it—I never really
liked the guy. It’s hard to put a finger on. You’ll be grateful for this
someday. Great pie, by the way.”

“Are you with someone,
Peter?”

“No, I’ve tried. Both sexes.
It’s not going to happen in this lifetime.”

“Maybe that’ll change.”

“I doubt it.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out
for it either,” she said. She felt no sparks with Peter, doubted that she’d
ever feel that way again.

“You’ll have a happy life and be
better for this.”

“You’re sweet to say
so.”

“I mean it.” He got up to go
shortly after that. “I’m on the road early tomorrow. Can I help with the
dishes?”

She thanked him and told him no. His face
when he bent to kiss her good night contained a deep, wide loneliness. He thanked her,
and she shut the door, thinking of something she’d read in a Philip Larkin poem
she’d taken out of the library: how in everyone there sleeps a life unlived as it
might be lived if one were loved.

She went to the sink and soaped up the
dishes.
A life as it might be lived if one were loved.
She thought of
Lawrence’s pasted on smile, his eagerness to get away. And his step toward her,
and his surprisingly tender,
I’m sorry, Alice.
Once upon a time, she
would have said there was nothing in her life she really regretted. Now, she
wouldn’t say that, but what she regretted was hard to name. Not the years with
Lawrence, not even the end. It was not being awake enough: being half asleep when she
met him, half asleep when she read his distant letters. He’d asked so little of
her, and she’d responded with half herself. His emotional vagueness, which drove
her crazy, had been in her too—like a disease passed between them. Never mind what he
did. She needed to account for her own half there–ness, for the deprivation and
narrowness of that life with him, and the rage that followed when she woke.