Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 60

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This is going to take them by storm, believe me.

The Saturday before the party she rang Daniel at his flat.  Have you had a chance to look at that tape I sent you?  Which one?  Which means you haven't, she groaned.  The tape about the Arctic, "Arctic Dream", the one shot by that camerawoman, Bonny Mahon.  Don't be obtuse, Danny.

I'm sorry, Eina, I just haven't had a chance to get Damn!

around to it.  I've invited her to the party, she warned him.  I'll look at it now, right away, he promised, and went to rescue the tape from his desk drawer.

He had been intending to skip-view the tape, but found that he was not able to give it such a cavalier treatment.  From the opening sequence he found himself captivated.

It opened with an aerial sequence of the eternal ice of the far north, and the images-which followed were striking and unforgettable.

There was a particular sequence of a vast herd of barren ground caribou swimming across one of the open leads in the ice.  The low yellow sun was behind them so that when the herd bull rose from the dark water and shook himself, he filled the air around him with a cloud of golden droplets which framed him in a precious nimbus like an animal deity from some pagan religion.

Daniel found himself enthraled to the point where his professional judgement was suspended.  Only after the tape had run to its conclusion did he attempt to analyse how the camerawoman had achieved her effects.

Bonny Mahon had understood how to use the extraordinary light to endow it with a texture and mood that reminded him overpoweringly of the luminous and ethereal masterpieces of Turner.

If he were ever to work in the gloomy depths of the equatorial forests, that use of available light would be critical.  There was no doubt that she had the gift of exploiting it.  He looked forward to meeting her.

For the viewing party Eina Markham had hired half a dozen extra television sets, and placed them in strategic positions in her flat, including the guest toilet.  She was determined that no one should have an excuse for missing the event that they had all assembled to celebrate.

As befitted the guest of honour, Daniel arrived half an hour late and had to fight his way in through the front door.  Eina's parties were extremely popular, and the large drawing-room was bulging at the seams.

Fortunately it was a balmy May evening, and the guests had overflowed on to the terrace overlooking the river.

For six months Daniel had lived like a recluse.  it was good to have human contact again.  Of course, he knew most of those present and his reputation was such that they sought him out eagerly.  He was the centre of an ever-changing circle of admirers, most of them old friends, and he was vain enough to enjoy the attention, although he knew just how ephemeral it could be.  in this business, you were only as good as your last production.

Despite the gay and amusing company, Daniel felt his nerves screwing up right as the hour approached, and he found it harder to concentrate on the clever conversation and repartee that flitted and sparkled in the air around his head like a flock of humming-birds.  Not even the prettiest of the many lovely ladies present could hold his attention for long.

Finally Eina clapped her hands and called them to order.  People!

People!  This is it!  And she went from room to room, switching on the television sets, tuning them to Channel 4.

There was a noisy chatter of expectation as the opening credits began to roll and the theme music swelled and then the first sequence of Daniel's production opened with a view that was the spirit of Africa distilled to its essence.

There was a scorched sepia plain on which the scattered acacia trees stood dark green with twisted stems and flat anvil heads.  A single elephant strode across the plain, an old bull, grey and wrinkled, his tusks stained with vegetable juices, thick and curved and massive.  He moved with ponderous majesty, while around him fluttered a shining cloud of white egrets, their wings pearly and translucent.  On the far horizon, against the aching African blue of the sky, ated the snowy pyramid of Kilimanjaro, detached from the burned ochre earth by the heat mirage.  It had the same ethereal delicacy as the egrets' wings.

The tipsy laughter and chatter quietened and the crowded rooms fell silent, captivated by the timeless and eternal majesty of the vision that Daniel evoked for them.

Then they gasped with shock as the two old matriarchs of the Zambezi herd charged together headlong from the screen, tattered ears flapping, red earth dashed from under their great pads, until their wild infuriated squeals were cut off abruptly by the crash of gunfire.  The bullet-strikes were an ostrich feather of dust dancing for an instant on the scared grey skin of each of their foreheads, and then the mountainous carcasses fell to earth, twitching and shuddering in the dreadful palsy of the brain shot.

For forty-five minutes Daniel led his audience captive in golden chains of imagination through the majestic and ravaged continent.  He showed them unearthly beauty and cruelty and ugliness, by contrast all the more shocking.

As the last image faded, the silence persisted for several seconds.

Then they began to stir and come back to reality across six thousand miles.

Someone clapped softly and the applause swelled and went on and on.

Eina came to stand beside Daniel.  She said nothing but took his hand and squeezed it.

After a while Daniel felt that he had to escape the crush of human bodies, and the boisterous congratulations.  He needed space to breathe.

He slipped out on to the terrace.

He stood alone at the railing and looked down, but did not see the boat lights on the dark Thames.  Already he was experiencing the first reaction to the heady elation that Had buoyed him up through the first part of the evening.  His own images of Africa had moved him and saddened him.  He should have been inured to them by now, but it was not so.  Particularly disturbing had been the sequence with Johnny Nzou and the elephants.  Johnny had been there all the time, at the periphery of his conscious mind all these months, but now his full-blown memory emerged again.  Suddenly, overpoweringly, the urge to return to Africa came upon Daniel with all its old force.  He felt restless and discontented.

Others might applaud what he had done, but for him it was over.  His nomadic soul urged him onwards.  Already it was time to move, to make for the next horizon, the next tantalizing adventure.

Somebody touched his arm.  For a moment he did not respond.  Then he turned his head to find a girl beside him.  She had red hair.  That was the first impression he had of her, thick bushy, flaring red hair.  The hand on his arm had a disconcerting, almost masculine, strength.  She was tall, almost-as tall as he was, and her features were generous, a wide mouth and full lips, a large nose saved from masculinity by the upturned tip and delicately sculpted nostrils.  I've been trying to get to you all evening, she said.  Her voice was deep with a self-assured timbre.  But you're the man of the moment.  She was not pretty.  Her skin was heavily freckled from sun and wind, but she had a clean outdoors glow.  In the terrace lights her eyes were bright and green, fringed with lashes as dense and thick as bronze wire filaments.  They gave her a candid and quizzical air.  Eina promised to introduce us, but I've given up waiting for it to happen.  I'm Bonny Mahon.  She grinned like a tomboy and he liked her.  Eina gave me a tape of yours.

He offered his hand and she took it in a firm strong grip.  All right, he thought, she's tough, as Eina said she was.  Africa won't daunt her.

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