The Last Safari

That summer was a hot one. I remember sitting in a chair in the kitchen. Flies clouded the ceiling fan as it folded the air above me. Condensation trailed from a bottle of Windboek down my fingertips.

I watched Henrietta in the courtyard dealing with the goats. They didn’t mind the heat. As long as she kept their troughs filled with water and scrapings, they could kick and jump off each other all day. Tough creatures.

“Ooosh, hot today,” she said, dropping the basket on the table.

If Henrietta thought it was hot, it was hot.

The farm was halfway between Bulawayo and the South African border, and about as dry and arid as it comes. You couldn’t grow crops, only livestock. I had a thousand cattle, a hundred zebra, some warthogs, goats, cats, dogs. But they weren’t the only animals.

I had 400 miles of irrigation network and dozens of wells which filled a hundred waterholes dotted across the property. Not just for my animals, but for the safaris.

Every year the great beasts of the southern African plains would cross my land seeking the wetlands of northern Zimbabwe, or the coastline of Mozambique. They’d been doing this for millennia. Giraffe, elephant, lion all migrated through here. As farming spread, the animals learned we’d give them water.

The farmhouse was on a hill, so I could look across the landscape and see dust-trails kicked up by approaching vehicles or herds. They’d come to a waterhole for a day then move on. I’d not disturb them. Then I’d go in my Jeep and check for broken pipes and ponds, and repair them before the next herd or pack or pride arrived.

I did that for forty years, and my father forty years before me.

That day was the last though. A hot day. Forty-five degrees out on the plain, where nothing grew but thorns and brush. I drained my Windboek and left the bottle on the table.

“Mr Baldwin, I am so very sorry.” I saw tears in Henrietta’s eyes.

“Don’t worry about me, Hetty. I promise you’ll be looked after. Here.” I took a wad of US dollars from my pocket, wrapped in butcher’s paper, and put them in her basket. “Promise me, you won’t show anyone. It’s important. The others can’t see none of it, or they’ll be after you.”

“I will be very careful, Mr Baldwin.”

She wasn’t of course. Abeyo told me later that Hetty bought a sundress the very next day. Her husband got suspicious, found the money and beat her.

“You are good man, always good man. I pray to God to bless your path.”

“I’ll pray for you too.”

I walked out and through the gate leading to the front drive. Four cars were waiting for me. Abeyo stood by my Jeep. Two more Jeeps had government men inside, rifles on their laps. The fourth vehicle was an old Rolls Royce. I recognised Councillor Moyo leaning against it, in his Armani suit and black aviators.

“I trust you have taken everything you need, Mr Baldwin,” said Moyo

“I trust you will take good care of my farm, Councillor.”

“Oh yes, we will take tip top care,” he replied.

I knew this was a lie. The government would turn the farm into a holiday villa for some cabinet minister. They would fit jacuzzis and a swimming pool, without considering the impossibility of filling them. The farm would fall to ruin, my workers sacked and driven out, and the irrigation networks would collapse.

The next safari would be the last. When the animals would arrive, they would find no water, only dust bowls. Not understanding, they would linger, certain there is always water here. For eighty years, there was always water.

Their lingering would be their death.

I knew I had done all I could. Recently the men with rifles had become bolder, coming right to my front door. Soon they would be inside, sitting on my furniture, on my toilet, in my bedroom.

I drove steadily down the curving road. Abeyo sat behind me, in the cargo bed. The farmhouse rose up then disappeared behind him. I tapped on the rear windscreen and pointed to the space behind the dashboard where I was stowing his bundle of dollars. He acknowledged it.

I’d known Abeyo since he was a child, but with this final transaction we weren’t friends anymore. Without the farm and without the government’s lenience, I was just another European. Money had been the only thing protecting me. With this last payment, and the car which he would drive back for himself, I was asking him not to kill me and leave me on the roadside before we reached the border, before I reach safety and rejoin my family.

It is only by Abeyo’s grace, and with my wife asleep in my bed and my son asleep in his, that I can record these words now.

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