Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 37

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The next morning Daniel beaded eastwards towards Chipata and the Malawi border.  There was not much point in expecting a sustaining breakfast from the hotel and anyway he was away long before the kitchens opened. He had covered almost a hundred miles before the sun rose, and he kept going most of the day, stopping only to eat beside the road.

He reached the border the following morning and crossed into Malawi with a tightening of his spirits.  Not only was this tiny country even more spectacularly beautiful than the one he was leaving, but in comparison the mood of its people was contented and carefree.

Malawi was known as the Switzerland of Africa for its grand mountains and highland plateaux and its lakes and lovely rivers.  Its people were famous throughout the southern continent for their intelligence and adaptability.  They were sought after at every level of employment from domestic servants to miners and industrial workers.  Lacking viable mineral deposits, Malawi's most valuable asset and export were her people.

Under the benevolent despotism of their octogenarian president-for-life, the special talents and strengths of the Malawian people were encouraged and fostered.  The rural areas eglected and the urban migration was checked.  Each were not n family was ordered by the leader to build its own home and make itself self-sufficient in food.

As cash crops they grew cotton and ground-nuts.  On the large Mountainside estates they raised a superior leaf of tea.

As Daniel drove towards the capital, Lilongwe, the contrast with the country he had just left was striking.  The villages he passed were clean and orderly and prosperous.  The people on the roadside were sleek, well dressed and smiling.  Most of the handsome women favoured a full-length skirt printed with the national colours and a portrait of Kamuzu Hastings Banda, the president.  Short skirts were forbidden in Malawi by presidential decree, as was long hair on men.

Along the roadside, food and carved wooden curios were offered for sale.

It was strange to see a surplus of food in any African country.

Daniel stopped to buy eggs and oranges, mandarins, luscious red tomatoes and roasted ground-nuts, and also to exchange cheerful banter with the vendors.

After the misery and deprivation he had witnessed in the country he had so recently left, his mood was uplifted by these delightful people.

Given the circumstances to make a good life, there are few peoples on earth so friendly and charming as those of Africa.  Daniel found his regard for them strengthened and renewed.  If you don't like black people, then you shouldn't be living in Africa, Daniel's father had once said to him.  It was a remark that had remained in his memory all these years, the validity of it growing ever more evident.

As he approached Lilongwe Daniel was struck even more forcefully by the contrast with other capitals of the continent.  It was a recent capital, planned and built with architectural advice and financial help from South Africa.  There was no slum stench here.  Instead it was a pretty town, modern and functional.

Daniel found it good to be back again.

The Capital Hotel was surrounded by parks and lawns but conveniently situated close to the centre of the town.  As soon as he was alone in his room, Daniel checked the local telephone directory which he found in the bedside drawer.

Chetti Singh was a big man in town and obviously enjoyed the sound of his own name.  There was a string of numbers listed.  He seemed to have his fingers in every honey pot: Chetti Singh Fisheries, Chetti Singh Supermarkets, Chetti Singh Tannery, Cheti Singh Sawmills and Lumber, Chetti Singh Garages and Toyota Agency.  The list took up half the page.

Not a difficult bird to point, Daniel admitted to himself.

Now let's see if we can get him to flush for a good sporting shot.

While he shaved and showered an attentive room servant carted his travel-stained clothing off to the laundry and ironed a clean but crumpled bush jacket to starchy perfection.  Good excuse.

I need to restock the tucker box, Daniel told himself as he went downstairs and asked the receptionist directions to Chetti Singh's supermarket.

Across the park.  The man pointed.

With assumed nonchalance Daniel sauntered across the park.

It occurred to him that he was hardly the most inconspicuous visitor in town, with his London tailored bush jacket, silk scarf, and the spectacularly travel-dusted and battered Landcruiser with his strong-arm motif emblazoned all over it.  Let's pray that Chetti Singh never got a good look at me or the truck that night.  Chetti Singh's supermarket was on Main Street in a new four-storey building of modern layout, with clean tiled floors and walls.  The shelves were piled with abundant wares, all reasonably priced, and the premises were thronged with customers.  In Africa this was unusual.

While Daniel joined the relays of housewives wheeling their shopping trolleys down the aisles between the shelves, .  he was studying the building and its staff.

Four young Asian girls sat at the cash registers guarding the exit.

They were quick and efficient.  Under their graceful brown fingers the registers tinkled to the sweet music of Mammon.  Chetti Singh's daughters, Daniel guessed as he noted the family resemblance.  They were pretty as sunbirds, in their brightly coloured saris.

In the centre of the floor a middle-aged Asian lady sat at a tall dais from which she could keep a beady eye on every corner of the shop.

She wore her hair in an iron-grey plait and though her said was more subdued in colour, it was edged with gold thread and the diamonds on her fingers ranged from the size of peas to sparrows eggs.  Mama Singh, Daniel decided.  When it came to handling the cash, Asian businessmen liked to keep it close to home, which was probably one of the reasons for their universal success.  He took his time selecting groceries, hoping for a glimpse of his quarry, but there was no sign of the turbaned Sikh.

At last Mama Singh left her seat on the dais and made an elephantine but dignified progress down the length of the store, until, with her long silken said sweeping the treads, she mounted a flight of stairs set so discreetly in a corner of the food hall that Daniel had not noticed them before.

She entered a door at a higher level and now Daniel noticed a mirrored window in the wall beside the elevated door.  It was obviously a one-way glass.  An observer in the room beyond the door would have a clear view over the supermarket floor and Daniel had no doubt that it was Chetti Singh's office.

He turned away from that inscrutable square of glass, aware that he might have been under observation for the past half hour, and that the precaution was probably too late.  He made his way to one of the girls at the cash registers and while she totted up his purchases he kept his face averted from the window in the rear wall.

Chetti Singh stood at the observation window as his wife came into the office.  She saw instantly that he was disturbed.  He was plucking thoughtfully at his beard and his eyes were slitted.  That white man.

He nodded towards the store floor below the window.  Did you notice him?

Yes.  She came to his side.  I noticed him as he came in.  I thought he might be a soldier or a policeman.  What made you think that?

Chetti Singh demanded.

She made an eloquent gesture with those lovely hands that were so incongruous on a female of her bulk.  They were the hands- of the young girl he had married almost thirty years ago, and the pale palms were dyed with henna.  He stands tall, and walks with pride, she explained.

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