Acacia - Secrets of an African Painting

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE - TO THE LUPANE

  We left Leopard’s Leap as the sun was coming up the next day. Albert and Katie waved us off as we headed back along the track and even Michael made a brief appearance at the window as we passed by. I had pondered on the fact that servants were still part and parcel of normal life out here, worrying at first that I should feel guilty about something, but not sure what. However, the freshly laundered clothes waiting for me in the morning, the food on the table whenever we were hungry, the turned down, freshly made bed ready for me each evening soon made me see reason.

  Both Michael and Fortune, the garden boy, were just doing a job like most of us, working for someone else, making a living. It was only European style modern morality that had any issues with this sort of thing, and so made it more my problem than theirs. I decided then that it wasn’t actually a problem, that Michael wasn’t lying when he said he enjoyed doing what he did and so luxuriated in the type of personal service I would have to pay through the nose for at a swanky hotel anywhere else.

  Tara was quiet, still upset over yesterday’s revelations and unwilling to discuss the possibility that there may be something in what Katie had said. We had at least talked last night and decided that the best thing for us to do now was to head towards the Lupane, as this was the only real lead we had now that the diary with all our notes was gone.

  I was particularly upset about the painting though. It was a real reminder of Nellie and “Acacia”, and of my own youth. Although worth nothing in financial terms, its value to me was incalculable and I fretted on the fact that I had managed to lose it after it being in the family for over a hundred years.

  Albert had said that he would call Sergeant Sibanda again today to see if there was any news, although he didn’t hold out much hope. He told me that these gangs of thieves quite often came up country, away from the main towns, just to see what they could pick up, and they had networks of buyers and sellers ready to quickly dispose of any hot items. By now, our gear could be hundreds of miles away, in another province, or even another country. Just as I was thinking this over yet again, a truck came roaring towards us, lights flashing. I just had time to pull over as it slid up to us in a cloud of dust and squealing brakes. My nerves were obviously starting to get the better of me as I instantly started to back the car up, thinking that we were about to be hijacked when Tara caught my attention and urged me to stop.

  ‘James, it’s that policeman, from Chinhoyi: I think he wants us to stop.’

  I turned to face the front and saw a puffed looking sergeant waving at us frantically, grinning all over his face. I stopped my crazy getaway attempt and eased the car forward again, stopping near enough to show willing, but far enough away to quickly get away once more if any trouble ensued.

  ‘My friends, my friends, I am sorry if I frightened you with my driving. My wife says it will be the death of me one day, although the way she nags me, perhaps it would better be the death of her too.’ He grinned again, breaking into a loud guffaw at his own joke.

  ‘Well, you were a bit quick, I must admit.’ I was calmer now, sensing that he did come in peace.

  ‘Sorry, sorry my friend, I have some good news for you. Through the miracle of what you might call networking, we have managed to find your things, minus one or two bits I am afraid, but come and see what we have here.’ He led us to the back of the truck and opened the door. Inside was the black case we had been carrying the painting in. It looked a little the worse for wear, as if a truck had run over it actually, but was basically intact.

  ‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ Tara reached forward for it, ‘how did you find it?’

  ‘Ah, my friends, it is a long story that I will attempt to make short. Mr Albert is very well known in these parts and I think he may have talked to some other people, as did I in an exhaustive search for the fiends that did this thing.’ I grinned at Tara at the boast, but let him carry on.

  ‘I put the word out to many other policemen from here to Harare and one of them called me yesterday afternoon. A farmer from his district had been handed these things by one of his workers who found them in a ditch, near the main road. I think the thieves must have thrown them away, not believing them to be of any value. Your camera is unfortunately not amongst these things, but that is to be expected. So anyway, Mr. Albert had told this farmer of your plight and so he knew to whom these things belonged. The policeman called me and I went to collect them yesterday. I was just coming to the farm to give them to you and had radioed Mr. Albert to say I was coming. He told me you had left and that if I hurried, I would catch you before you got to the main road. So here I am.’ He grinned again, obviously delighted with the work he had done.

  ‘We don’t know how to thank you for this,’ I smiled broadly as Tara pulled out the diary, painting, and all the notes we had lost, ‘these things are worth much more to us than the camera anyway.’

  ‘Yes, I thought they might be.’ He replied. ‘This book is very old I think, and the painting too, although the painting is not so fine, if I may say. I paint myself and this is by an amateur artist who has not really done the best work.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I would have to disagree with you. This painting is the finest work I have ever owned, it means a lot to me.’

  ‘Ah, it is worth something to you on the inside, I see. But I still say there are some things wrong. The paper is too thick too; why would anyone use paper so thick?’

  I didn’t answer his rhetorical question, but instead, shook his hand and asked if there was anything we could do to repay his kindness.

  ‘No, nothing for me,’ he said, ‘but if you are coming back this way before you leave our country, then a small toy for my little boy would make him very happy.’

  ‘We would be delighted to find something for him.’ I replied, making a mental note to be sure to do so, ‘Thank you sergeant.’

  With that, we jumped back into the car and carefully made our way around the policeman’s truck, once more heading for the main road and on to the next part of this strange journey.

  I looked across at Tara who had once again lapsed into silence, but now she seemed to be deep in thought rather than merely moping as she had been.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’ She replied, a little unconvincingly.

  I paused, but decided to let it pass for the moment, instead looking to how we would now proceed.

  ‘So, we should probably stop somewhere and go through the notes again to get a better idea of where we should be heading.’ I was greeted by silence and I looked across at her again, thinking she hadn’t heard me. However, she was already looking at me, fully square in the face, which gave me a bit of a start, it was such an intense look that I turned away for a second.

  ‘Okay, good idea.’ She said after a moment or two before turning to face the front once again, concentrating on the scenery.

  I was worried now as that burning look in her eyes reminded me of the way she had acted when we were in Cape Town. I wasn’t sure how to handle her when she was like this; it was so out of character and there was something there that didn’t seem to come from the Tara I knew, but was something else, from somewhere else. I stopped myself then as I started thinking crazy thoughts that didn’t make any sense. I must have misjudged her; she was just excited to get the stuff back, that was all.

  As the journey wore on, though, I tried making small talk, but got no real response, just monosyllabic answers, giving the minimum away and increasing my anxiety every mile we drove. After Chinhoyi, we headed down the back road towards the main A5, Harare to Bulawayo highway. We passed close by Zwimba and then through Selous, named presumably after the great hunter with whom Frederick had started his own expedition way back in 1877. Just before we reached the main road again, we stopped in the country town of Chegutu, from which point, the road and railway ran parallel all the way to Bulawayo.

  We bought some food and drink at one of the little tra
ding stores by the roadside and then found a shaded area just off the roadside to once again plan our attack. The diary and our maps and notes had obviously been sitting in water at some point, as there was some dampness in the paper and a faint musty smell emanated from inside the bag where it had not dried out properly. Luckily though, everything seemed to be still legible, the smudges did not interfere in any great way with anything important. I spread the map out and traced the road we had just come down, judging the best place to leave the main road and head towards the area we had identified and shaded on the map before.

  Tara was a little more animated now and joined in, pouring over the information laid out before us.

  ‘Well,’ she said, still peering at the map, ‘my guess is that we should be heading for the Lupane River end of the search area. That was where Katie told us my parents and Nellie were headed, so perhaps they knew something we don’t.’

  ‘Possibly, but I don’t understand how they would.’ I couldn’t think that they would have had information and not have shared it with us by way of the letter they had written to Tara in Cape Town.

  ‘Have you got any better ideas?’ she smiled at me, knowing I would be able to say nothing.

  ‘Well, no I don’t, as it happens: I just don’t think we should jump to conclusions, that’s all.’

  ‘Like the conclusion you jumped to yesterday, you mean. That sort of conclusion jumping can cause all sorts of trouble, can’t it?’ She glared at me now, eyes suddenly blazing, obviously still mad at me for believing her parents could have committed murder out here.

  ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I…we, shouldn’t have thought that way. It was a long leap from people in a funny mood to thinking they could have murdered someone. Plus, I really don’t believe your folks could have done it, it just all seemed to fit, that’s all. I wasn’t really thinking too hard about the personalities involved, just the story and the facts. I really am sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  She still glared at me and I knew that she would hold this one over me for some time, but eventually she relaxed and let a faint smile play around her mouth.

  ‘I won’t forgive you yet, it was a terrible thing to think and you are not getting off the hook quite so easily, but let’s not worry about that now. We’ve got some treasure to find and sitting here is not going to get it found is it?’

  I smiled back, knowing that there was some more work to be done to get her forgiveness, but also happy that the storm had been weathered, at least for now.

  I turned back to the map and as a concession, traced a route towards the Lupane River where it crossed into the crosshatched area we had marked out.

  ‘I guess the river is as good a place as any to start. At least it narrows things down a bit.’ I mused out loud and then grabbed a pencil, marking the route out as if making the decision official.

  The river entered our search area on the northwest edge, neatly dissecting it into two almost equal halves before, on the map at least, petering out near the village of Nkayi. We would turn off to the west at Kwekwe and then drive through Silobela before reaching Nkayi, but the road looked to be fairly minor on the map and I wasn’t too sure what we could expect. At best, I imagined a single track road like the one down to Leopard’s Leap. It was already late in the afternoon and so we decided to drive just as far as Kwekwe tonight and find a place to stay, setting out again early the next morning.