6

Fifteen days later, Shankar and Alvarez set out from the port of Ujiji, casting off across the waters of Lake Tanganyika by steamer. After crossing the lake, they stopped at a small town called Albertville to purchase a few necessary items. From this town, the Belgian government’s railway runs to Kabalo. There, they would have to board a steamer on the Congo River for a three-day journey to Songea, and upon disembarking, leave the river route behind and head south, into a realm of unknown jungles and deserts.

Kabalo was a squalid place, a haunt for a number of Portuguese and Belgian half-castes.

Shankar had no sooner stepped out of the station when a Portuguese man approached him and said, “Hello, where are you headed? I see you’re new here, you surely don’t know me. My name is Albuquerque.” Shankar glanced back to see that Alvarez was still inside the station.

The man’s face was as coarse as it was ugly. But he was powerfully built, nearly seven feet tall, and his body was so firm and well-formed that every muscle could be counted.

“Pleased to meet you,” Shankar said. “I see you’re a black man,” the man replied, “from the East Indies, I’d wager. Come on, let’s play poker.”

Shankar was angered by his words. “I have no interest in playing poker with you,” he said. He understood at once that the man intended to rob them of all they had under the pretext of a poker game. Poker was a type of card game, a form of gambling—Shankar knew it by name, but he had never seen it played in his life. Back in Nairobi, he had heard that villainous gamblers used the ploy of a poker game to bring ruin upon newcomers. It was a form of highway robbery.

At Shankar’s reply, the Portuguese scoundrel turned red with fury. It seemed as if fire would shoot from his eyes. He moved closer, and through gritted teeth, in a utterly distorted tone, he snarled, “What? Nigger, what did you say? You’re far too insolent for an East Indian. Let me tell you, for your own good, that a black man like you—Albuquerque has shot them down by the dozen with this revolver, like so many snipe. Listen, this is how I do things. Any newcomers who set foot in Kabalo will either play poker with me, or they’ll fight me in a revolver duel.”

Shankar saw that to enter into a revolver duel with this scoundrel would mean certain death. The man was a crack-shot desperado—and what was he? Until yesterday, he had been a mild-mannered railway clerk. But if he played poker instead of fighting, he would lose everything.

Perhaps half a minute had passed while Shankar hesitated to reply. In a flash, the man drew a revolver from the leather holster at his waist, aimed it at Shankar’s stomach, and said, “A duel, or poker?”

The blood rushed to Shankar’s head. He would not bow down like a coward to such brute force, even if it meant death.

He was about to say, “A duel,” when from behind him a terrifying, stentorian voice boomed, “Hey! Hold it, or I’ll blow the top of your head off!” Both men startled and looked back. Alvarez stood firm, his Winchester repeater raised and aimed at the Portuguese scoundrel’s head. Seizing the opportunity, Shankar quickly spun around to the other side of the pistol’s barrel. Alvarez said, “A revolver duel with a boy? Tchah! Drop that pistol on the count of three—one, two, three—”

The pistol fell from Albuquerque’s slackened hand.

“Playing the big hero with a boy you found all alone, were you?” Alvarez said.

By then, Shankar had retrieved the pistol from the ground. Albuquerque was somewhat surprised; he hadn’t imagined that Alvarez was with Shankar. He laughed and said, “All right, mate, no hard feelings. I’ve lost. Give it here, lad, give me my pistol. Nothing to fear, hand it over. Come, shake on it. You too, mate. Albuquerque doesn’t hold a grudge. Come, my cabin’s nearby. Let’s have a glass of beer.”

Alvarez knew the blood of his own kind. He accepted the invitation and, taking Shankar with him, went to Albuquerque’s cabin. When he heard that Shankar did not drink beer, he made him coffee instead. He laughed with abandon and told story after story, as if nothing had happened at all.

Shankar found himself genuinely drawn to the man. There were not many people in the world who could, after the insult and enmity of a few moments before, forget it all completely and engage in such open-hearted, cheerful conversation with the very people who had humiliated them.

The next day, they boarded a steamer at Kabalo to travel south along the Congo River. The scenery on both banks filled Shankar’s heart with joyous wonder.

He had never in his life seen such strange and magnificent forest. The part of Africa he had been in until now had no such forests—it was nothing but vast prairie, mostly grassland, with acacia and yucca trees here and there. But as the steamer advanced along the Congo, on both sides were dense woodlands, thick lianas of every kind, and forest flowers; wild nature here was unrestrained, playful, captivated by its own beauty and lush abundance.

The lover of beauty, the dreamer, that was in Shankar (he was, after all, a son of Bengal’s soil, not just a hard-bitten gold prospector like Diego Alvarez) was enchanted and amazed by this festival of forms, weaving all manner of dream-webs in his mind in the crimson afternoons and the midday sun.

Late at night, when everyone else was asleep, the mysterious, wild nature under the alien, star-filled sky seemed to awaken—the calls of many a wild animal reached his ears from the jungle, but Shankar’s eyes knew no sleep; enraptured by this dream of beauty, he would sit awake, defying the chill of the central African night.

There was the blazing constellation of the Great Bear—in the sky far away, above his little village, the same Great Bear would have risen today, the same sliver of a waning moon on a dark night. How far he had come from those familiar skies, and how much farther he had to go—who knew what the end of it all would be?

Two days later, the boat reached Songea. From there, they set out again on foot. There was not much jungle here, but rather a horizon-spanning, unpeopled plain and countless hills, large and small. Most of the hills were barren and treeless; on some, there were thickets of Euphorbia-type plants. But it seemed to Shankar that the scenery of this region of Africa was singularly beautiful. His mind seemed to breathe a sigh of relief in so much open space; the colours of the sunset, the magic of a moonlit night, transformed this land at nightfall and in the late afternoon into a fairy-tale kingdom.

“In this veld country,” Alvarez said, “all places look the same, so the chance of losing your way is very high.”

The very day he said this, something happened. As the sun set over the desolate veld, they pitched their tent behind a small hill and lit a fire. Shankar went out to look for water. He took Alvarez’s rifle with him, but only two cartridges. After half an hour of wandering here and there, the daylight faded, and a thin darkness slowly cloaked the entire plain. Shankar could swear he had not walked for more than half an hour. Suddenly, looking around, he felt a certain unease, as if some danger were approaching; it would be best to return to the tent. Far and wide there were hills, large and small, all looking the same, no landmarks, everything a featureless uniformity.

After walking for five or six minutes, Shankar realized he had lost his way. Alvarez’s words came back to him then. But in his inexperience, he did not yet grasp the gravity of his predicament. He kept walking—one moment he thought the way was ahead, the next to the left, the next to the right. Why couldn’t he see the glow of the campfire? Where was that little hill?

After walking for two hours, Shankar became truly frightened. By then he understood that he was completely lost and in terrible danger. He would have to spend the night alone in this desolate, lion-infested, unknown expanse of Rhodesia, without food, and in this biting cold, without a blanket or a fire. He did not even have a single matchstick with him.

The upshot of it all was that on the evening of the following day, twenty-four hours after he had lost his way, a frantic Shankar, half-dead with thirst, was found by Alvarez under a euphorbia tree nearly seven miles from their camp and brought back to the tent.

“The path you took, Shankar,” Alvarez said, “if I hadn’t found you today, you would have wandered deeper and deeper into the desert and died of thirst by noon tomorrow. Many men like you have died this way in the Rhodesian veld before. These are terrible places. Never go out from the tent like that again, because you’re a novice. You don’t know the art of desert travel. You’ll be killed outright.”

“Alvarez,” Shankar said, “you’ve saved my life twice. I will not forget it.”

“Young man,” Alvarez said, “you forget that you saved my life before that. If it weren’t for you, my bones would have been bleaching in the grasslands of Uganda all this time.”

After crossing the vast veld between Rhodesia and Angola for two months, they finally saw a mountain range in the distance, like a line of clouds. Alvarez consulted his map and said, “That is our destination, the Richtersveld mountains. Still about forty miles from here. In these open parts of Africa, you can see things from a great distance.”

There were many baobab trees in this region. Shankar was very fond of this tree—from a distance it looked like a banyan or a pipal, but up close one could see that the baobab offered little shade, yet was immense, its gnarled trunk and branches covered in what looked like large warts or tumours, like a short, ugly, hunchbacked djinn from the Arabian Nights. In the vast plain, great baobab trees stood everywhere, near and far.

One evening, sitting before a fire they had built in the fierce cold, Alvarez said, “This Rhodesian veld that you see, diamonds are scattered all over here. This is a land of diamond mines. You’ve surely heard of the Kimberley Mine. There are many other smaller mines, and people have found diamond pieces, large and small, here and there. They still do.”

He had barely finished speaking when he exclaimed, “Who’s that?”

Shankar was sitting in front of him, listening. “Where? Who?” he said.

But Alvarez’s sharp eyes were as unfailing as the bullets from his rifle. A moment later, Shankar’s eyes caught several indistinct figures approaching in the darkness, some distance from the tent. Alvarez said, “Shankar, get your rifle. Go quickly, load it—”

When Shankar came back out with the rifle in hand, he saw Alvarez smoking calmly. A little way off, the unknown figures were still approaching through the darkness. A moment later, they came and stood outside the circle of the campfire. Shankar looked and saw that the newcomers were several tall, dark-skinned men. They were empty-handed, clad in loincloths, with lions’ manes around their necks and feathers in their hair—their well-built bodies, in the light of the tent, looked like bronze statues.

In Zulu, Alvarez said, “What do you want?”

There was some talk amongst them, after which they all sat down on the ground. Alvarez said, “Shankar, give them something to eat.” Then, in a low voice, he added, “This is big trouble. Be very careful, Shankar!”

The tins of food were opened. Shankar placed food before each of them. Alvarez sat down to eat with them again, although he and Shankar had already finished their supper that evening. Shankar understood that Alvarez had some plan, or perhaps it was the custom of this land to eat with one’s guests.

As they ate, Alvarez chatted with the newcomers in Zulu. A long while later, having finished their meal, they left. Before leaving, each was given a cigarette.

After they had gone, Alvarez said, “They are Matabele people. Ferociously fierce, they’ve fought the British government many times. They fear not even the devil. They suspect we’ve come to their land in search of a diamond mine. The place where we are is the territory of one of their chiefs. The laws of any civilized government don’t apply here. They’ll seize you and burn you to death. Let’s strike the tent and leave.”

“Then why did you tell me to bring the rifle?” Shankar asked.

Alvarez laughed and said, “Look, I thought that if they were not won over even by the food, or if I could tell from their conversation that their intentions were bad, I would shoot them while they were eating. Look here, I sat down to eat with my revolver behind my back. I would have finished them off. My name is Alvarez. There was a time I feared not even the devil, and I still don’t. Before the fish in their hands reached their mouths, the bullets from my pistol would have blown their skulls apart.”

After five or six more days of travel, they entered a dense tropical forest at the foot of a very large mountain. The place was as solitary as it was vast. Looking at that forest, it occurred to Shankar that if he were to lose his way in it once, he would not have the strength to find his way out even if he wandered his whole life. Alvarez also cautioned him, saying, “Be very careful, Shankar. One who is not used to walking in the forest will lose his way at every step in these woods. Many people have died in the forest, trapped and helpless. Just as you got lost wandering in the desert, you can get lost in here just the same. Because here, everything looks the same; there are no landmarks to distinguish one place from another. Unless you’re a good bushman, you’ll face danger at every turn. And remember this, too: never go a single step anywhere without your rifle. The forests of central Africa are not a park for leisurely strolls.”

He need not have said it to Shankar, for he could see from its appearance that this region was no pleasure park. He asked, “How far is your yellow diamond mine? This is the Richtersveld range, as far as can be understood from the map.”

Alvarez laughed and said, “I told you, you have no idea. This is the outer range of the real Richtersveld. There are many more ranges like this. The whole region is so vast that even if you go seventy miles to the east and a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles to the west, this forest and these mountains will not end. The narrowest width is forty miles. Altogether, the entire Richtersveld mountain region and forest covers eight or nine thousand square miles. In this vast unknown region, to find the exact spot I came to seven or eight years ago—is that child’s play, young man?”

“Our food has run out,” Shankar said. “We need to arrange for some game, or from tomorrow we’ll have no choice but to dine on air.” Alvarez said, “Don’t you worry. Don’t you see the troops of baboons in the trees? If nothing else turns up, we’ll have a fine breakfast of fried baboon leg and coffee from tomorrow. But not today. Let’s pitch the tent and rest.”

They pitched their tent under a large tree and lit a fire. Shankar cooked, and after they had eaten, when the two of them were sitting before the fire, there was still daylight.

Puffing on his pipe of strong tobacco, Alvarez said, “You know, Shankar, in these unknown forests of Africa, there are still so many animals that science knows nothing about. Very few civilized men have come here. The okapi, for instance, was first seen only in 1900. There is a kind of wild boar that is almost three times the size of an ordinary wild boar. In 1888, Moses Cowley, a world traveller and big-game hunter, was the first to find this wild boar in the Lualaba forest of the Belgian Congo. He hunted one with great difficulty and presented it to the New York Zoological Museum. Have you heard of the famous Rhodesian Monster?”

“No,” said Shankar. “What is it?”

“Listen, then. In the northern borderlands of Rhodesia, there are vast marshes. Many of the uncivilized Zulus of that country have occasionally seen a strange kind of creature in these marshes. They say it has a head like a crocodile’s, a horn like a rhinoceros’s, a neck long and scaly like a python’s, a body like a hippopotamus’s, and a tail like a crocodile’s. The nature of this gigantic creature is also very fierce. It has never been seen on land, only in the water. But it’s hard to believe the exaggerated accounts of these uncivilized native people.”

“But in 1880, a prospector named James Martin spent a long time in this region of Rhodesia, searching for gold. Mr. Martin had previously been an aide-de-camp to General Matthews, and he was a good geologist and zoologist himself. In his diary, he mentions having seen this unknown creature of Rhodesia from a distance. He says that in shape the creature was like a reptile of the prehistoric dinosaur era and was exceedingly large. But he couldn’t say anything for certain, because he had seen the animal indistinctly in the early morning mist in the wetlands on the shores of Lake Kavirondo. Upon hearing the creature’s call, which was like the neighing of a horse, the Zulu servants with him fled for their lives, shouting, ‘Sahib, run, run! Dingonek! Dingonek!’ Dingonek is the Zulu name for that creature. It might appear once every two or three years, or it might not, but it is so ferocious that its appearance is a matter of great terror for the people of that country. Mr. Martin says he fired two shots from his .303 one after the other at the creature. From that distance, he missed; the sound of the rifle probably made it dive into the water.”

“How do you know all this?” Shankar asked. “Was Mr. Martin’s diary published?”

“No, a long time ago, this incident involving Mr. Martin was published in the Bulawayo Chronicle newspaper. I had just come to this country then. Since I used to prospect in the Rhodesia region myself, the description of the animal greatly attracted me. I even kept the newspaper with me for a long time. Then it got lost somewhere. They were the ones who gave the creature the name Rhodesian Monster.”

“Have you ever seen any strange animal?” Shankar asked.

The question was followed by a strange occurrence.

The evening darkness had by then fallen thick and heavy. In that shadowy twilight, it seemed to Shankar—perhaps he was mistaken—but it seemed to Shankar that he saw Alvarez, the formidable and fearless Alvarez, the tough and unerring Alvarez, startle at his question—and—and this was the most astonishing thing of all—as if in the next moment, he shuddered.

At that moment, Alvarez, as if unconsciously, glanced around at the dense, desolate jungle and the mysterious, formidable mountain range, but said not a word. It was as though, having returned to this mountain wilderness after so many years, some dreadful, bygone event had risen to the surface of his memory—a memory that was far from pleasant for him.

Alvarez was afraid!

Astonishing! Alvarez, afraid! Shankar could not even conceive of it. And yet that same fear, imperceptibly, came to weigh upon Shankar’s own mind. It was as if this utterly unknown, fantastical, mysterious wilderness, this immense rampart of mountains, had for eons been guarding a profound secret—Be you hero, be you fearless, step forward—but the quest for that deep mystery must be purchased at the price of death. The Richtersveld mountains were not India’s Himalayas, the divine-souled king of mountains—their spirit, like that of this land’s primitive tribes, the Maasai, the Zulu, the Matabele, was cruel, savage, and ravenous for the flesh of men. They would spare no one.