I Dreamed of Africa Read online

  Among these new-found friends, there was Carol Byrne. She was so evanescent that somehow I cannot even remember how we first met. She entered our life on gentle feet, and she was there as if she had always been. She was a woman like the shadow of a cloud, untouched by age and not worn by life. Fate had been hard to Carol. Her man had died in an aeroplane crash, leaving her with a small child, Sam, an adorable and sensitive little boy a few years younger than Emanuele. Yet the preoccupations and the problems we knew she had been through had left no mark in her beautiful, youthful, spiritual face, nor had they affected her quiet manners. She took everything gracefully in her stride; her company was a privilege, and her presence always a gift which left us refreshed. She loved reading, music and Eastern philosophy. She was one of those rare people who fully practised her beliefs, and her life shone with harmony. She lived in a house built out of stone, thatch and great planks of wood, on the side of the cliff on the Mbagathi River at Kitengela. It was filled with books, carpets and cushions, music, and objects with a story, and like its owner, her house had a transparent soul. From the large windows, one could watch the animals of the Nairobi National Park coming to drink at the river. One often found lions sitting in her drive way, and rhino scratched their backs against her creepers.

  Sooner than I could have imagined, I had been adopted by my new African family.

  9

  Exploring Lake Turkana

  … giunta era l’ora che volge al desio

  e ai naviganti intenerisce il cuore …*

  Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia

  Exploring was our priority, and absolutely necessary in order to find the place we were looking for, so among the first things we purchased was a four-wheel-drive car and camping equipment. On the map of Kenya, Paolo pointed out the places we would visit next. From Naro Moru at the foot of Mount Kenya to Lake Naivasha and Lake Baringo; from Lake Nakuru to the parks and reserves of Amboseli, Tsavo, the Shimba Hills, Samburu, Marsabit, the Mara; from the wilderness of the Nguruman and of the Aberdare Mountains to the Arab towns on the coast, Lamu, Kiunga, the Bajuni Islands and Shimoni in the south, where fishing was supreme, we enthusiastically explored the country.

  One of our favourite places was Lake Turkana, then still called Lake Rudolf, in the north after the Austrian Crown Prince.

  The last stretch of road to Lake Turkana is a slow progression through black volcanic rocks. A last hill smouldering with heat and lava, barren landscapes, and then the purple, grey, black and jade expanse of the prehistoric lake appears, silent and majestic, with its islands immersed like immense sleeping dinosaurs.

  In our early days we spent weeks and months there during the children’s holidays. Sometimes we camped at Sandy Bay, a bare yellow cove fringed by a beach of brown pebbles and black sand, where Paolo always managed to catch, even from the shore, the most unexpectedly gigantic Nile perch. These are enormous but lethargic fish, easy to catch once they have taken your bait. Some are bright golden yellow, some grey-pink with the large round surprised eyes of all fish, in which we humans cannot read any expression of pain or suffering, so that – as with insects and molluscs – we feel absolved of their deaths. Sometimes we camped on long stretches of dunes, protected by very large Acacia ethiopica, under the shade of which the children, in their swimming costumes, would do their homework in the afternoons. The wind seldom stopped blowing and rain was rare at Turkana, except during the long rainy season of April, when sudden storms darkened the sky. Then huge waves altered the perfection of the lake, which became inkblack and violet, threatening and untameable, and torrents of water swirled, filling the sandy luggas.

  One of those times the storm broke out at night, while we were camping north of Loyangelani, below Mount Por. We had two tents and the children shared one of them. At midnight the wind started howling with fury, and the violence and noise of the rain beating on the canvas was deafening. It was as if the sky was exploding, and the earth seemed to crack and tremble as before a volcanic eruption. I was worried about the children, but there was no way we could get out of our tent. The wind was so strong that we could not even manage to unzip the flap door. Then one of the posts collapsed and we were in total darkness.

  The wind dropped as suddenly as it had started. For a time the only sound came from the newly-born river which flowed for a few hours into the lake. Then a chorus of birds and frogs came to life in the dripping silence of the night. We struggled out of our tent, to find the children’s miraculously intact with them peacefully asleep inside it. Next morning they woke as early as ever, and were amazed to discover that practically nothing remained of all our light camping gear which had been left outside. It was as if a tornado had come through the camp, carrying away all our pots and pans. Chairs and tables were upturned and blown for quite a few metres, and trees were festooned with kangas and toilet paper.

  Life in Turkana followed ancient patterns. Paolo went fishing daily with Emanuele. I cooked. Plates were cleaned in the rough soda-saturated sand. We swam in the warm soda water, spying birds and crocodiles. Emanuele looked for chameleons and often found small black scorpions below the rocks, or, at night, that fat and evil-looking poisonous pale spider called the ‘sole fugens’. He had several pet chameleons at that time, with names of early British kings – Alfred the Great, or Robert the Bruce. Funny creatures, with their careful, tentative walk, crafty eyes rotating in all directions, and interesting behaviour patterns, Ema just loved them. He used to have a favourite recurrent dream of a wood of blue bamboo alive with orange chameleons. We went for long walks, and in the evening we flew kites along the shore.

  Occasionally, for more serious fishing, Paolo hired a boat at Loyangelani and we all went out. I remember coming back at sunset, the boat full of enormous fish, sitting at the prow with Emanuele, a little boy of seven or eight. The warm wind, which smelt of soda and of waterfowls’ guano, blew through his straight fair hair streaked pale by the sun. His skin was dark, his eyes deep, brown and gentle. His head rested against my shoulder while I recited old Italian poems, which he would never study in his English school, Leopardi’s Silvia and Dante’s Quinto Canto in the ‘Inferno’ of the Divina Commedia, Pascoli and Foscolo, Jacopone da Todi, and Carducci’s Jaufré Rudel. I hoped to try and communicate to Emanuele the same emotion, the same love for the harmonious beat of verses, which I remembered and treasured from those times with my father. It was strange and beautiful to be there in the heart of equatorial Africa, slowly crossing this vast, ancient lake where our ancestors lived millions of years ago, reciting classical Italian verses to my son.

  Passa la nave mia con vele nere

  con vele nere pel seloaggio mare.

  Ho in petto una ferita di dolore

  tu ti diverti a farla sanguinare …*

  or

  … il volo d’un grigio alcione

  prosegue la dolce querela

  e sopra la Candida vela

  s’affigge di nuvoli il sol…†

  Emanuele listened, gazing out at the distance. His skin had the warm smell of healthy sunbaked boy, and I loved him with a subtle pain, the premonition that it would not last.

  10

  The Coast

  In the afternoon they came unto a land

  In which it seemed always afternoon.

  All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

  Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters

  Paolo and I decided to spend the next summer on our own, and to explore the north coast. We sent the children to their grandparents in Europe, and we set off in our Land-Rover with a tent, an inflatable Zodiac rubber dinghy, fishing gear and, of course, a gun. We wanted to visit Lamu, Kiunga and Kiwayu.

  I have always perceived Lamu as a sort of smaller and poorer Venice, with similar characteristics. The narrow paved alleys, the Arab architecture, the tall, crowded, arched buildings, and the promenades facing the lagoon … even the smells and dirt, and, somehow, the c
ats.

  Like Venice, it attracted a cosmopolitan crowd of eccentric and educated wanderers, artists and hippies. For a short visit it was pleasant, especially if one had the chance of a boat or could hire a dhow to go out exploring. The endless sleepy shallow channels, thick with mangroves, never failed to remind me of the Venetian lagoon’s smaller islands, still deserted and unpolluted in the days of my childhood. There were ruins to visit, and over everything hung an ancient and decaying scent of old civilization and mouldering stones, which I found fascinating and familiar; but I much preferred the solitary, more open and sunny, places inland. We passed through stretches of deserted forest, where often, at a turn of a sandy track, we surprised huge elephants drinking deeply in stagnant waters, blue with waterlilies, while white egrets rested on their grey backs.

  One night we camped at Kiunga, then a forsaken group of fishermen’s houses, facing the Bajuni Islands. Paolo hired a fishing-boat with a small crew, and decided to take off next morning for the Melango, where huge rock cod – tewa in Swahili – were known to hide in deep caves. Next morning we woke to a strange sight: during the night a ship had gone aground on the reef. Prow pointing up at an awkward angle, sides lapped by the high waves of the mid-monsoon, its silhouette on the horizon looked like a fallen seagull with a broken wing. It was surrounded by the fishermen’s small canoes, balancing on their outriggers, like leaves or nutshells, and they brought back the news: it was a Greek cargo ship, bound for Kilindini Harbour in Mombasa, carrying animal fodder. The hold had been damaged, and water was filling it fast; they would have to abandon it before high tide, when it would certainly sink. The captain was trying to get in touch with his company to get instructions, which were delayed because of radio failure, and the crew were holding on. They did not want any help.

  It was weird, going out fishing in sight of that sad reminder of man’s inefficiency and fragility compared with the sea and the elements. The tide started coming in in the early afternoon, and I could distinguish figures moving on deck and checking over the sides. White-crested waves foamed closer and higher by the second.

  I was keeping an eye on it, thinking that our help might be required, when a grey figure, looking ragged and windblown, climbed to the upper deck and raised his arm to the sky, where clouds heavy with monsoon rain were gathering; a faint bang, and a red rocket lined the dull sky for a few instants, like an inverted meteorite … a short pause, and another rocket went up. Many craft started converging towards the ship, and we joined them, just in time.

  The haggard, distressed crew descended silently into the canoes. We took four on board, our boat being the largest and sturdiest. One was the captain, a middle-aged Greek who spoke no English, and who, like the rest of them, was dirty and unshaven. He was hugging the ship’s log wrapped in yellow oilskin, and brooding on his fate and the impending confrontation with his masters, to whom he would have to answer for his misfortune or negligence; his eyes were bloodshot and somehow sad, but vacant. They looked a ragged bunch, exhausted, shocked and drunk. The only undamaged cargo was a considerable number of cases of very good whisky. They distributed the bottles, and I was amused to see with what speed the Muslim fishermen took them, no doubt to sell them. It was good Black Label whisky, which Paolo much appreciated. The crew took slugs in turns and were fairly inebriated when, unexpectedly, the ship suddenly rose up, keel pointing to the slate sky, from which rain was starting to fall; in seconds it sank, disappearing into the ink-black turmoil of the ocean. It was an odd, unforgettable scene, which made me feel part, as in a Melville story, of the numberless past dramas of the sea.

  From Kiunga we drove down through Mambore to the village of Mkokoni, a few palms scattered on a tongue of sand facing across the idyllic bay to the island of Kiwayu. Only the villagers lived there in those days. A few years later, a small exclusive tourist camp would be built further along that beach, but in the summer of 1973 Kiwayu and Mkokoni were for us alone. We pitched our tent just outside the village, on the beach where sea vines grew in intricate patterns making a carpet of green leaves and pale mauve flowers, just out of the reach of the high tide.

  The dinghy allowed us the freedom of moving with speed to Kiwayu island and its channels lined with mangroves, to the fishing grounds. Because of the monsoon and the currents, August is not a good month for fishing. The water was murky, so Paolo resorted to bottom fishing. The fisherman we employed as a guide daily brought us fresh lobster, in huge quantities. I became rather adept at cooking them in various ways – boiled, poached, sautéed in butter and cognac, curried, fried, as a ragoût for spaghetti, in a wine sauce on rice, with herbs, with spices, in tomato and oregano, with ginger and shallots … after ten days Paolo swore he could not face another lobster and would do anything for a good piece of roasted meat.

  We motored across to Kiwayu, and walked to the village to buy a goat. As in all villages in Africa, the person to ask was the local chief. The chief was a fat man with yellow-brown skin, who sat under an ancient nim tree in front of his hut, a loose chequered kikoi around his ample belly, naked children and chickens scratching around him in the dusty sand. He wore an embroidered Muslim cap, and chewed betel nuts, occasionally spitting straight sprays of stained, rusty saliva at dangerous angles. He was blind from sarcoma. Women with large velvety eyes came and went, some giggling shyly at our strangeness, others made bolder by age and experience. They wore amber or red glass beads around their necks, their heads were covered with thin coloured cloth, in Arab style, with minute silver earrings on their earlobes and rings through their thin Nilotic nostrils.

  Flies buzzed and landed everywhere; no one took any notice. We sat with the chief while Paolo bargained for a young goat which was still out, browsing with the rest of his small herd, soon to return. The man sat cross-legged, ignoring the filth, with a dignity and a curious worldliness about him. He suddenly addressed us in fairly good Italian, with a surprising Trieste accent: he told us he had been at sea for many years, working in freighters, and had visited many harbours in Europe, and the Middle and Far East. He spoke a little of many languages. He had seen more than any of his fellow villagers could hope to in a lifetime, until he became blind.

  I asked him if he ever missed the wider horizons and freedom of the cosmopolitan contacts to which he had been accustomed. He grinned a wise smile with almost toothless gums. He beckoned to a woman who brought him a piece of cloth containing a few thin, knobbly rolled reefers. He chose one, and a young boy was quick to light it. The sweet, drifting, aromatic smoke of cannabis pleasantly masked the smells of dried fish, overripe mango, coconut, jasmine and humanity which is the smell of most coastal villages, and his grin widened beatifically: he stood straight and proud, and with a round gesture of his hand he seemed to involve and gather everything which surrounded him there, and which he could no longer see.

  ‘I have all this,’ he said solemnly. ‘This is my home and these are my children. What else should I want? I have seen the world, travelled to strange countries. Now that my eyes are blind and I can see no longer, I can still remember; and where could I remember better than here, sitting under this tree, in the village where I was born?’

  His majestic movement encompassed the shabby huts, naked children, goat pellets, chickens, nets hung to dry: the same scene as hundreds of fishing villages on the Indian Ocean; this was a happy man. Paolo’s eyes met mine through the smoke of his stubby joint, and we told each other mutely that he was right, and we could understand his wisdom.

  The little goat was white and skinny, with a bloated stomach. It bleated pitifully when one of the younger sons of the chief took it aside and stuck a long sharp knife in its throat. The bleating stopped abruptly.

  ‘How could you!’ I turned outraged to Paolo. ‘Such a sweet baby goat. I refuse to cook it for you. I shall not eat it!’

  Paolo grinned his hungry dancing smile. ‘That’s fine. You don’t have to. I will.’

  Back at the camp, even though the smell of barbecued roast meat was
tempting and succulent after days of lobster, I resisted and did not touch the goat, and Paolo, true to himself, remorselessly ate it all, with huge enjoyment.

  I remember those days as a time of pure bliss and enchantment. In the night, pink sand crabs came curious to our campfire to steal bits of food, running away obliquely and disappearing with it into their round new holes. They often managed to enter our tent through the zip closure, and we had to find them with the torch or the hurricane lamp to put them out, as their scraping legs scratching on the canvas prevented our sleep.

  Late one night, excited voices and lanterns approached the tent. Paolo quickly wrapped a kikoi around his waist and went out, to discover a group of men from the village who, as he had a gun and ammunition, wanted him to help in shooting a rogue lion that had killed a bull. Paolo went, but to my relief the lion did not return to the kill.

  One day a delegation came from the village to ask Paolo for his dinghy to bring back from the island the body of a man who had been killed by a swarm of bees. He agreed, and the thin corpse, wrapped in white linen like a mummy, was carried ashore amidst much wailing, to be buried in a shallow sand grave at the Muslim cemetery in the forest.