Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier by Alexandra Fuller Read Free Book Online Page A

on the head and bring me their hides.”
    Then we hurried back through the rain to the camp, sat huddled under the shelter of the tamarind tree, and tried to ignore the yelps and shouts that wafted down through the persistent rain from the top of the farm.
    Eventually Erasmus, looking like the sole survivor of a catastrophic mud slide, appeared with two crocodile skins and laid them on the veranda wall for Mum’s approval. Mum inspected them and said, “Pity about all the holes. They might have made quite a sweet pair of shoes.”
    Dad lit his pipe and said, “Still got all your fingers, Erasmus?”
    “Bwana?”
    Lightning blanketed the sky and turned everything an eerie shade of pale blue for a moment. Thunder swelled around us, as if the belly of the earth were growling.
    Mum said, “Thank you, Erasmus. You’d better knock off now.”
    Dad said, “You’d better salt those skins like mad, or they’ll start stinking the place up.”
    Mum said, “I might pin them up around the ponds as a warning to other crocodiles.”
    Dad said, “I’m going to Lusaka tomorrow. Anyone need anything?”
    “Should we treat ourselves to a nice fat turkey for Christmas this year?”
    “What’s wrong with those things that keep crashing around the garden? Why don’t we eat one of them?”
    “Those are Atatürk and Isabelle, and they’re not for eating,” said Mum. “Too tough by now anyway.”
    It was quite true that Mum’s pet turkeys had been more than usually exercised by the frequent appearance of snakes and monitor lizards and by the constant unwanted attention of the dogs.
    “Crocodile tail?” Dad tried.
    “Not very Christmassy,” said Mum. “Go and see the Greek fellow at Cairo Butchery. You might be able to swap some fish for a bird.”
    Dad sighed. “All right. What about you, Bobo?”
    “I don’t think I can stomach Lusaka,” I said, thinking of the crush of traffic and the blistering Christmas decorations flapping from the shop windows, everything turgid and overblown. I find the forced cheer of the holiday season depressing in northern climes, but the tropical equivalent is almost unbearable. And I thought of myself half suffocated and sweating, permanently assigned to guard the car while Dad negotiated with the Greek butcher. “I’ll stay in the valley,” I said.
    Mum said, “You could always help me sex the fish.”
    I flinched, “No thanks, Mum,” and said to Dad, “Maybe you could drop me off at K’s farm. I’ll go and look at his bananas.”
    Dad threw me a sharp look from above his pipe.
    “What?” I said.
    “Nothing.”
    “I’m curious,” I said.
    “You know what they say?”
    “What?”
    Dad tapped his pipe and cleared his throat. “Curiosity scribbled the cat.”
    “Well,” I said, “aren’t you curious?”
    “Nope.”
     
     
     
    THE NEXT MORNING , shortly after six, Dad stopped the pickup at a signpost advertising a school, a church, and K’s farm. “This is it,” he said. “Just follow the signs.”
    “How far?”
    Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.” He handed me a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. “Here.”
    “Thanks.”
    “It’s on the Chabija River somewhere. Ten or fifteen kilometers, I think.”
    “Okay.” I looked out into the vast stretch of Africa that swept in front of me, a rolling belly of land as far as I could see, interrupted by the odd stark hill and bands of dense trees. The occasional throb of smoke chugged up out of the expanse, indicating the presence of a lonely village. There was no sign of a commercial farm, usually distinguishable by a better-than-usual road, tobacco barns, rows of gum trees (grown to fuel flue-cured Virginia tobacco or for fence posts).
    “Everyone here knows him. Just ask for Mr. Banana.”
    “All right.”
    Dad eased the pickup back onto the tarmac. His brown arm wedged out of the window of the cab as he spun away into the distance. The car looked too small and feeble against the