of the ladder I found a platform with a short railing and a canopy of tightly woven leaves and fronds. A makeshift bed was there as well as a small metal camp trunk of supplies. Ryder told me to sit and rummaged in the trunk, emerging with flatbread and a sharp white cheese. There was biltong as well, a local specialty of meat soaked in vinegar and spices and then dried, and some fruit that was too soft but still sweet. He made me eat, and when I was done, he turned me around.
The tree house overlooked the lake, the view completely unobscured, and from the short distance we could see every creature that came to drink. A lioness was lapping at the water’s edge while a group of zebra on the opposite side watched her warily. She ignored them and wandered off, her indifference apparent in every step.
I sat transfixed for hours, watching every little drama that played out there. The warthogs that shepherded their little piglets with their tails held aloft like banners. The hippo that strode firmly to the centre of the lake and submerged only to rise munching contentedly as a cow on her water plants. And the giraffes, stepping with stately intention towards the edge, lowering their heads and splaying their legs. One of them ventured towards us, nibbling at the leaves around the tree house until she was so close I could touch her. I put a finger to her hide, surprised to find it felt like horsehair. She looked like velvet from a distance with her elegant patchwork coat. She looked at me then with her enormous doll’s eyes and blinked slowly. She seemed to nod in greeting, then turned away to make a graceful exit.
There was nothing that day that I didn’t marvel at. And when the air grew hot and the animals sought shade and rest, I began to talk. I told Ryder things I had never told him, never told anyone. I told him about Johnny, and the fact that I had loved him and how it had surprised me and frightened me to love anyone that much. I told him about burying the pieces they had sent home to me, and what it had meant to be a widow at twenty. I told him about the men since then, those I had loved and those I had not. I told him about the things I was ashamed of, and the things I regretted, and I cried until my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t see him. He held me as he might hold a sick puppy, tenderly, asking nothing. He handed me a handkerchief and said little. His hand stroked my hair, working out the snarls, and when I was finished and could say nothing more, he fed me again and told me to lie down. He covered me with the thin scratchy blanket and lay behind me, holding me against his body. I fell asleep and slept so deeply and so long that when I awoke the stars were out, shimmering as if someone had flung a handful of broken glass across a velvet tablecloth. I counted them until dawn began to streak the eastern sky, pink and gold shot across the horizon.
Ryder awoke then and pointed to the lake. The animals were stirring, some like the lions just coming in from a night’s hunting. Others, like the gentle giraffe, had never been to bed at all, preferring to stand like sleepy sentinels throughout the night. And still others, like the monkeys, were rising with the dawn, chattering in the trees in conversation with the birds.
“I don’t even remember what I told you,” I said as he handed me a cup of cold tea. He smiled, and there was something seraphic about that smile. Seraphs were angels, but warriors, I remembered from my catechism classes. They brought absolution and vengeance, an uneasy combination, but a magnificent one.
“It’s not important. It’s only important that you finally said it.”
“Possibly. I know my psychoanalyst would say so. Of course, I’ve been seeing him for five years and he’s never managed to fix me.”
“Why do you need to be fixed?”
I smothered the urge to laugh. “Weren’t you listening last night?”
He shrugged. “We’re all broken, Delilah. That’s what Africa does. She either attracts people who were broken in the first place or she does the deed for you. This is no country for softness.”
“I don’t see that you’re broken. You seem whole enough.”
“Then