The Lioness(10)

The movie theater where Benjamin and his father would go lacked a name. It simply had a wooden sign with the word movies painted in garish red and yellow paint. It was a five-minute walk from the Catholic church, which had soaring windows, one of which was a stained-glass image of Jesus Christ being crucified, and a high, dark wooden ceiling. But it was the painting behind the altar that had fascinated Benjamin as a child. In it, Jesus was a little boy, and he was standing with Mary and a white man in full safari regalia: wide-brimmed hat, a jacket with bullet loops, pants with plenty of zippered pockets. The three of them were standing in a clearing in the jungle, and all around them African men and women and children were kneeling, their faces either adoring or awed. And in the distance, behind Jesus, Mary, and the hunter, there was an African witch doctor, complete with a feathered crown, running away, looking absolutely terrified as he gazed back over his shoulder.

After seeing the movie Barabbas a couple of years ago, Benjamin had gone directly from the movie theater to the church to compare the crucifixion he had just seen on film with its portrayal in the stained-glass window. He wanted to see how different artists, ones who made films versus ones who worked with glass, approached the death of his savior. He decided he preferred the Hollywood version. That eclipse had mesmerized him.

Now that he had spent a few days in the Serengeti with the actress’s group, he’d concluded that Katie Barstow was not what he expected from a movie star. She was neither troublesome nor demanding, and he appreciated that. She was actually rather undemanding. This was the term his father and Patton used for the easiest clients. It was Patton’s supreme compliment. Their first night at their first camp, she had requested that her bath be ready at six fifteen. He had been with the advance lorry and among the group that had unfurled the waterproof canvas bathtubs and set them on their stanchions, including the one that would be in the tent for the movie star and her husband. He’d been among the group boiling the water for the guests who wanted their baths before cocktails and had carried the great drums of scalding-hot water into Katie Barstow’s tent for her bath. But the canvas had had a small tear (or tears), imperceptible to the naked eye unless you followed the leak, and so the water had seeped from the tub, both preventing the guest from having her bath and turning that section of her tent into a swamp.

Over the years, he had seen other clients who would have become enraged. They had been promised so much and were spending so much and came from such privilege that they managed to forget where they were: a world where a group of trained men created civilization in one small spot for a night and then tore it all down, leaving as the only remnants tire tracks, flattened grass, a fire pit (or two), and the bones of whatever game they had cooked. Benjamin had had women berate him because they chipped their nails and men castigate him because the dining tent lacked the right bourbon. Their behavior was always embarrassing and sometimes it was dangerous. It was perilous for Benjamin because a person could be fired for this sort of fiasco, and it was hazardous for the guests because, in the midst of their tantrums, they might stalk from the camp and wind up bitten by a snake or mauled by any one of a dozen different kinds of wild animals before a ranger or porter could bring them back to the safety of the tents. Benjamin himself had had to retrieve one American who had something to do with oil, and who, when they had run out of brandy after dinner—and the meal was a meat he complained was too gamy—had wandered off in a huff toward a candelabra tree. He was drunk, and it was evident that he was about to see if this particular euphorbia was as toxic as he had been told. Benjamin had grabbed him just before he’d attempted to snap one of the candle-like branches, which would inevitably have released the latex that would have burned him at best and blinded him at worst. The next morning, the American had grown sheepish when Benjamin had shown him the lion tracks on the far side of the tree. He would never know if the lion had been there at the same moment that he had been dragging the American against his will back to the camp, but the very idea caused his stomach to roll over.

When the movie star had learned that her bath would be delayed until after dinner and she and her husband would have to dine with the stink of bug dope on their clothes and the dust and dirt from the savanna on their skin, she’d shrugged and told Benjamin she was sorry that the porters would have to boil more water. He could see the great perspiration stains down her back and even on the seat of her trousers, because the plastic cushions they used in the Rovers grew so sticky and hot it almost seemed like you could cook on them. Then the actress had moved the luggage stand away from the swamp in that corner of the tent and said to her husband, “David, I’ve moved the rack. Be careful you don’t walk into it if you get up in the night.”

“Got it,” her husband had said.

“A drink?” she’d asked him.

“I always supposed actresses were vain.”

“Oh, we are. Trust me: we are. But you saw me when I was a three-year-old spilling my orange juice.”

“It’s true. I was a witness to that. I think I also saw you wet your pants in Central Park when you were four.”

She motioned at her khakis and Benjamin would have preferred not to be present for this exchange, but the Americans didn’t seem to care. “This is only sweat, I promise. And I think Kidogo will still mix me a gin and tonic, even if I am a bit grubby for the likes of your gallery.”

“But not for the gallerist.”