Lion Mountain
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Lion Mountain I.
Approach to Freetown
Copyright 1978 U.S. Library of Congress
This book may not be reproduced in whole
or in part by mimeograph or any other means,
without permission by the author.
By Karan Henley Haugh
For Charles and Lee
I.
The sky was paralyzingly blue; the sun, incomparable to the pale sliver slipping through the
clouds like a crescent moon back in London. Strangely it seemed to throb, forming pools of gas
over its broad surface, behind the wave of rising heat. A mirage of fluidity it thus created
around itself where there was nothing but dust.
While flying over the Sahara, she had asked him how the sun could change that way. He
glanced up from the binder on his knees. His spectacles had meanwhile slipped unnoticed to the
tip of his nose. He pushed them back and spoke of radiation, wavelengths, refraction, the
effects of dust, and other atmospheric conditions.
The way he looked at it, couldn't he feel the movement, the prickly waves creeping over the
flesh? His explanation did not help. Still she could not understand how that slip of sun over
London that morning had become this bronze shield over Guinea by late afternoon.
But it did not need explanation. Pressing her cheek against the glass, she could feel its warmth
and could imagine that magnified outside the cabin. How wonderful it had been to feel the sun
draw the poison from her in Las Palmas. She wondered what it might be able to do while lying
on the beaches of Sierra Leone.
His hair and beard were coarse, scruffy. They and his dark glasses gave him the look of an
intellectual; whereas, in his conservative dress, he might be taken for a businessman, banker, or
barrister. The night she had met him, his hair was very blond. He looked in fact Nordic--tall,
broad-shouldered, very much in command.
She remembered the one day on the mountainside in Greece it was actually golden. Bronze,
dressed in only white swim trunks and tennis shoes, his hair shining, he followed her as she
scuttled like a goat up the mountainside. It was the first time she had ever seen him that way—-
relaxed, uninhibited. Ahead were the monasteries of Mt. Athos, where for centuries no female
was allowed.
"Imagine that, Pete!" she called down. "Not even animals! What could they do to stop them—
rabbits, mice, birds. Could they keep female birds from nesting in their tree tops?" Racing up,
she called that she would be the first female animal to make it.
"Don't be mad!" he retorted. His mood changed suddenly. She stopped. Losing her footing,
she began to slide down with the loosening loam and pebbles. He said he would not go. And
she did not-—not without him.
His hair, after the sunless winter, had darkened considerably. Actually, it had the color of
dung. But what would he say if he could hear me think that, she thought. So meticulous, so
very proper and civilized. Such an up-and-coming success. Who knows? One day, maybe
Parliament. She turned back again to look at the parched grasses of the savannas, flaxen gold,
the color that his hair had been on that cliff in northern Greece.
There they were again—-two black and two white stewardesses, beginning to make their way
down the aisles of the aircraft. Like clockwork they appeared near the cabin, and after
working their way back it seemed they were ready to start all over again. "May I help you, sir?
Madam? Would you care for a magazine? A cushion? Something to drink? A hole in the head?
Peter looked over the rim of his glasses, which had slipped to the tip of his nose again.
Damn those screws, damn! Why hadn't I noticed and got them fixed while we were still in
London? He had noticed, he recalled, but in the rush to make the flight, the problem had
passed by unattended to.
Sometimes while working in the study if the screw came loose, he would only reach for the
tiny screwdriver, which he kept for that express purpose. But she had taken the screwdriver.
For what? She did not recall. Neither did she recall where she had put it. The fact that she had
done this annoyed him, but he would not show her. He simply read his papers by holding his
glasses up with his thumb.
Meanwhile she paced the floor in her bare feet. "It's cold, Lizzy! Put some slippers on." But
she would not. Neither would she stop. He ceased bothering to ask. Of course it was
distracting. Didn't she want him to be prepared for the conference? Didn't she want him to
spend some time with her that first night in Freetown?
Dressed in a pair of jeans with paint smeared on them and an old, old t-shirt which clung as if
wet to her breasts, she continued to pace outside his study, mumbling something with a
muffled "God!" thrown in every now and again. It was as if she were looking for a fight. Some
type of ritual. What? All that wild energy bundled up. Something to pierce it and let it out.
Where did it come from, and why did it come? He did not know. He would not oblige her
what she was looking for.
"Lizzie, go to bed, will you? I've got to read," he pleaded with her. She turned towards him.
She looked like a stranger. Tall, gaunt, hostile, she might have been one. "You don't care, do
you!" she shouted. "My life is going down the drain. Write your article, all of them. See if I
care!"
If there were only a way to understand, something which could be done for her. It made no
sense at all. As it ended, he only closed the door, but still he could hear her. The place was
charged with her weird, frantic energy. He could not work. Taking off his glasses, he rubbed
his forehead and put away his notes.
A map of the USSR in puzzle pieces rested on a large frame beside his desk. It had been worked
only from the Crimea up to Kursk. The northern reaches were grains of wood; the raised
surface was lightly filmed with dust. He wondered as he closed his briefcase when, if ever, he
would find the occasion to finish it.
As he walked to the couch, she coolly looked up at him. "Well,” he said, “Are you coming to
bed? You know we'll have to be up early to leave at 7:00 a. m."
“Yes," she answered and continued reading.
As he lathered, he waited hopefully for her to come in the shower, for the warm water to melt
her tensions. However when he came out he found her in the same position.
Without a word, he walked down the hall, but shortly afterwards there was the plashing of
water. Soon afterwards she was beside him, smelling of talc and lavender.
"I'm sorry, love," she murmured as she first tested his disposition by brushing her hair lightly
against his arm. He reached for her and pulled her to him. "I don't know what's been the
matter with me," she said in a soft voice.
"Don't worry, Lizzie," he said as he stroked her forehead and kissed her. "My, I'll have to get
accustomed to this new hair style of yours. My little lioness!" he chuckled and ran his hand
through the stiff layers which rose sharply to his touch. Turning, he put his other arm around
her.
". . . The trip to Africa will do the both of us a world of good, I’m sure," he said, as he
continued to kiss her. "Go to sleep now and sleep well, all right?"
"Hhhhmmmm” she murmured and curled up beside him.
During the night he awoke as she cried out and lashed about in bed.
"Go to sleep, my love," he said softly. "It's all right. Everything will be all right."
At 5:00 a. m. the alarm rang. While he tried to get her out of bed, she kept wrapping herself in
the blankets against the wall. After opening the curtains and turning on the light, he put the
radio on loudly. He was sure that she would find her way to breakfast.
Walking down the hall, he saw the sun porch windows patterned with frost, the icicles hanging
down in a row of clear tusks. A few minutes after he began to fix breakfast, Elizabeth appeared
at table, laying her head in the folds of her brown robe. She only lifted her head to eat the
breakfast he'd set before her. He had trained her well, he thought, as he watched her turning a
small spoon in the yolk and butter of her egg.
The leisure of her life . . . it was a wholly different world from his. Journalism he had chosen
as his profession; it was the only one, which offered him the diversity, the challenges he
required. However, she was a cruel mistress — exacting, demanding. To make it in the field
was an endless ordeal, involving a tremendous output of energy, as much as an athlete engaged
in competition must expend. An athletics of the mind, following through the course of events,
no matter where or how they take you, searching through the facts to arrive at the most
reasonable cause and effect of a situation.
You could never understand that, either, could you, Rhuba. He recalled that last weekend they
had spent together at the coast. Walking along through the woodlands she was quiet, far more
than ever he remembered her to be. Even more so than when she was preparing her poems for
publication the months before. Unusually quiet. Sitting on a whitewashed wall, watching the
silvery laps of the sea, she was wearing one of her father's fisherman's sweaters and green slacks.
He remembered them because when she got up, the seat was chalked in white.
Sitting behind her, the breeze swelling up from the sea blew her hair, her rich red hair against
his face. How he had loved that hair, the smell of it, the feel of it. The way she gazed at him
that day, turning from the sea, looking at him, as though she were somehow comparing him to
it, turning and looking, her eyes very active, very cautious, somehow weighing. It was strange.
. .
The new flat after the divorce was dismal. The upholstery and curtains, a rodent brown; the
rooms, bare. All of his attention went into the study, lined with books, the walls covered with
maps. There was that one of the Soviet Union in puzzle pieces which he had been working on
before she came. . .
. . . And in she came, with Aztec pillows and faux animal hides. Imitation Persians to take the
place of the nondescript kind he had scattered over the wooden floors. Copper pots teaming
with exotic dried plants-— the fragrant branches of eucalyptus, large pods, chrysanthemums,
peacock plumes. Then there were stretches of batiks he helped her tack up, wooden sculptures
from Eastern Europe, mobiles of birds and butterflies done in delicate Japanese colors, and her
paintings as well.
At that time she had been doing vaguely cubist things. These were what he had seen on display
at the Institute showroom. Soon afterwards followed a wave of soft, melting pastels. There
were plants in different tonalities of light, scenes of the nearby parks and the seacoast during
their frequent visits, and of her cats at play or asleep on pillows in the sun porch.
Persians--Muffy and Juba she called them. Artists always seemed to have their store of cats.
Peter, however, was partial to dogs, especially to the setters his father raised in Northampton.
However, he had grown used to the cats, to the way they licked each other's coats and chased
each other down the hall.
With her arrival the flat was alive with color and movement. There was the thrill of arriving
home and finding her in some flimsy outfit painting in the sun porch. The windows open, the
curtains blowing about her on the breeze. The place crawling with plants, many in bloom,
Debussy on the stereo and she would become the sea as her body followed the motion of her
arm over the canvas.
Just to watch her like that the moment or two before she became aware of him gave him the
greatest pleasure.
"Oh, Peter!" she would cry out, rushing towards him with the brush in her hand and breaking
into his arms like a wave. Always there was a delicious meal awaiting him—quiches, lobster,
Greek delicacies following their vacation in Greece, curried dishes, French pastries, and those
raw vegetables spotlessly washed with a rich, oriental sauce.
Then, in that surprising way, she began to change. Now it was he who made himself breakfast
and sometimes the both of them dinner, or more likely they went out.
At 7:00 a.m. when he got up, she was still asleep, and in the evenings she complained about
being exhausted. Recently she told him that she could not paint any longer, that having to
supervise the students at the Institute had turned into "one gigantic pain, a farce!"
She explained that she could have no direct connection with their artistic process since she had
none with her own. It was ironic, she said, that her position by its very nature presumed she
always would.
A caged animal! That was how he could describe her. He could hear her high-pitched,
hysterical voice at times. Endlessly she complained about being cramped inside the flat during
that unseasonably cold winter. The cats, snuggled up against each other in the sun porch on the
other hand, did not seem to notice the difference.
She has few responsibilities. Once a week Mrs. Mac Farland comes to clean. I've become the
chef, practically. All she need concern herself with is the Institute and that, only part-time.
What does she have to complain about, really? What exactly does she want? Life with me is
assuredly an improvement over where I found her, living with that Rhodes character in that
Southwark tenement.
Rhodes had been there the night he met her. Lanky, dark-haired, with a swarthy complexion,
he might have been a sailor off the dock. He remembered Rhodes leaning against a far wall of
the Institute smoking a cigarette with a sense of bravado. He clicked his fingers while he talked
before going out. . .
". . . to drink," Elizabeth told him later, "An alley cat," she'd called him, Peter remembered.
He also remembered her telling him how Rhodes had started disappearing at night, drinking,
and hanging around in "dives". . .
"I think he's jealous because of my work, because of the exhibition. He's never had one. I
don't know. My God, you'd think he'd be pleased. But no. . . " she said, and her voice
weakened at that point, he recalled, and her eyes, misty, looked away. Much later he would
hear the full story.
Touching his hand in a low, confessional tone, Elizabeth told him how sometimes Rhodes had
come home early in the morning, drunk, fought with her and beat her "... like my father...”
The motors whirled outside the window, providing a constant medium of noise. There was the
endless distraction of the stewardesses and now someone's loud talking. If only he had
remembered to pick up earplugs. If only he could get this reading done. He found himself
looking over that dark rim again.
He stopped staring at the sheet in front of him and looked at Elizabeth still leaning up against
the window. He, too, looked out the window, but all there was to be seen was that endless,
parched savanna. He thought of reaching out to touch her, of running his hand up her gauze
back into that bristly hair. She just seemed so absorbed that he did not wish to disturb her.
What would he say to her, anyway?
How different she was now from the time at Las Palmas. While the plane refueled, they took
their lunch at an outdoor cafe. They ate quietly. Peter noticed that she only ate only half of
everything on her plate, despite his entreaties for her to eat more, to get up her strength.
But afterwards, while sipping daiquiris, she began to laugh, stretching out her legs and tilting her
head backwards. He noticed how she wrinkled up her nose while laughing, something, which
she rarely did anymore, and how she half-covered her smiles in a shy, girlish way.
Walking up the ramp, she laughed and kissed his cheek, even his hand, which she swung in hers.
It's the alcohol responsible for her gaiety. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been that way. She
hasn't been like that for the longest time. He almost wished the effects would not wear off, but
they did as the plane continued over Dakar.
Now she was more herself, or rather, more like what she'd been for the past few months.
Quiet, but an uneasy kind of quiet.
The bristles of her hair rested motionless against her blouse. She had had her hair close-cropped
a few days back. He hadn't been told about this beforehand, and he did not like it.
If only she had mentioned it, I would have tried to persuade her not to have it done. Almost a
yard of that luscious hair lost! It's all wrong for her looks, besides. It makes her face look much
too narrow, drawn.
The way she wore it on the night they met--long and smooth to her waist--that was the way he
liked it. Over her pale face and bright green eyes it drifted when she turned her head sideways,
ran her hand through it and smiled. He had watched her doing that for the longest time before
he left his friend who had brought him to the showing. Then when he approached her and
talked with her, she did the same for him. As she leaned a bit sideways, she covered her lips
with her hand and smiled.
Her gestures had a certain suppliance. They made him want to hold and reassure her right
there that everything would be all right. Even that first night. How soft she looked. How fair
her skin. An innocent kind of radiance surrounded her. What a treasure she would be if he
could only salvage her.
Long--that was the way he preferred it. But recently she had begun to complain that its being
long demanded far too much care that it was constantly getting in her way. Grabbing a handful
of it, she would impatiently throw it over her shoulder. If she pinned it up, she complained that
it would start to tumble down right in the most important part of a composition, and she
would lose her concen-tration. Anything, anymore, seemed to cause her to lose her concen-
tration, and she would drift away.
For weeks she had been more or less this way--brooding, moody, and silent. A few days back
when the weather had let up somewhat, they took a walk through Kensington Gardens. As he
talked about the trip, he noticed from time to time that she seemed unaware of him. Her eyes
would stray, making their way towards a belfry or a turret or a starling gliding from one
rooftop or leafless tree to another.
"Lizzie, what are you thinking, might I ask?" he might ask. And without a doubt, she would
turn towards him and answer with a forced grin something like, "I wonder what the sky would
look like if it were violet." Yet he would know that that was not it at all.
There she was again. The same stewardess whom he had seen a hundred times stood over him.
"Sir, would you care for anything? Something to drink, perhaps?" Then he felt the dryness of
his throat.
"Lizzie," he said, turning towards the window, "would you care for something to drink?"
"Yes," she said, "I am thirsty. Maybe some ginger ale " she said, running her hands through her
hair to straighten it. There was no need for that since it all fell smoothly around the central part.
"Ginger ale and scotch and soda," he told the stewardess who then went on to the next row of
seats with her questions.
“This scenery sure does have a drying effect on me!" Elizabeth said to him.
"You seem to be taking it all in," Peter said, jutting out his chin and nodding slightly.
"Yes," she said and wound up her eyes. "There's something very pure and strong about it. Do
you notice the color of the air?" He looked out the window and nodded.
"You're wrong!" she said excitedly. "There is no color. Only an intense brightness — that
surpasses color."
"That's a lot from you all at once. You've been quiet a long time," he said as though this were a
question, requiring a response.
“Yes . . . just thinking."
"May I inquire about what?"
"Sure," she said with her American candor. Again she drew her hand through her short mane.
"It takes some getting used to, doesn1t it?"
"It certainly does after wearing it nearly waist-long for two years."
"Two years and longer. . . " she said reflectively, then dropped it.
"Is that what you were thinking about?" he asked again. He was used to her sidetracking
issues. The only way to deal with her at such times was to corner her and look her squarely in
the eyes.
"No," she replied hedgingly, "about my grandmother leaving Europe as a young girl. I wonder
if she felt anything like I did leaving London this morning."
“Huh? How do you mean?" he asked, beginning to pick at his beard. There was a tiny spot
where he had pulled out several hairs. "You're not going to live in Sierra Leone, only visit for
two weeks. How do you make the connection?"
"Yes, of course," Elizabeth laughed lightly. "How silly of me to think that!" She smiled again
but turned back to look out the window.
If that's the way he’s going to be, she told herself, he certainly won't want to hear about the
dream last night. . . how very strange, vivid. . . Grandma boarding the ship in Hamburg, having
to walk to Ellis Island in water up to her waist. But instead of coming to America, she was
walking through the turquoise water onto the shore of Sierra Leone. .
Again no communication. Words exchanged, but no communication. Peter wondered how he
might interest her, but the stewardess returned with their drinks. "Would you care for
anything else, sir?" Her bright cheeks and dark eyes gleamed in her dark face.
No, the only thing I care for is not to be disturbed any longer. And that baby crying again!
"No, nothing more, thank you," he told her after Elizabeth shook her head and began to sip
her gingerale.
Ahead a few seats sat a black couple. All of the man he could see was his frizzled head beneath
a tasseled box hat. His wife, wearing a red satin dress, held a crying baby against her bosom.
She rocked it, singing softly in their native tongue. The song was quite melodic. It swelled up
suddenly then ended with a kiss. The baby quit crying, blinked, and fell asleep while the
woman continued humming.
"Doesn't that lullaby sound lovely, Pete?"
"So long as it works!" Pete said gruffly, even surprised at himself. He finished his drink and
pushed back his glasses. He tried to let the music relax him, but his nerves were too jittery.
The melody could not soothe him. Again he found himself staring at his folder and felt a
headache growing.
It was nearly 4:00 p. m. If they had kept scheduling, as it appeared they had, they should be
landing soon. As he set his briefcase on the floor, Elizabeth looked at him.
"We should be landing soon." He mentioned.
Not long afterwards, the pilot's voice announced the upcoming arrival at Lungi Airport.
"Are you psychic?" Elizabeth asked.
"No, it's only following schedules," Peter said, rubbing his head. I wish I were psychic, though,
he told himself, concerning you. He looked again at her watching out the window.
"Those are Bolilands," he told her.
"Huh?"
"What you're looking at, the Temne, the natives of this region, call the Bolilands. That's the
part of the savannas, which undergoes drastic changes from season to season. If, for instance,
we were to fly by in July, we would see the grasslands flooded with rain. It would rain nearly
every day for a large portion of the day. The land would be covered with dense underbrush.
While in January, you see it as it is before you."
"A bit dry, no?"
"Say, Lizzie," Peter said as he stopped pulling at the hairs in his beard and leaned towards her,
"what do you see when you look at it the way you do?"
“Well, . . . you know. . . it looks a lot like the corn fields I flew over on my way to Boston."
She spoke slowly, but Peter could tell that for the first time she spoke with interest. "There's
little in the way of detail," she added, "but there is a certain light. . . color. . . no, light. . . " She
returned to the window. “ I'm not sure yet. "
A moment later she called out, "Look, Peter!" She took his arm and drew him nearer. "The
land is getting green!"
"Yes, love. Those are the mangrove swamps which run along the bay."
"But why is it not dried out like the rest of the land?"
"The reason for that is that those trees are in the swamplands into which the entire river system
drains.
“ . . . Say," he said more excitedly, "do you see that huge bay down there?” She nodded. “It's
nothing more than the mouth of the river that filled with silt. And there, that’s Lion Mountain
coming up there," he said, pointing to a densely covered ridge of mountains. For some reason
the plane had circled southeastward, coming into the interior rather than pulling in directly at
Lungi near the coast.
"Lion Mountain?"
"Yes, but I've told you about that before, haven't I?"
Elizabeth shook her head. Her short mane brushed the air. Peter was sure he had. "Well,
'Sierra Leone’ is a corruption of the original Portuguese term for 'Lion Mountain.’ A
Portuguese explorer Pedro da Cinta passing there around the time of Columbus, actually in
1460 to be precise, saw that group of mountains and named it that. Eventually, the country
took that for its name.”
"Are there still lions?" she asked him. The low-lying mountains were covered with a dense
canopy of forest. Perhaps it seemed that they could still house lions.
"No, no," Peter said, rubbing his temples. "Most likely there never were any. I mean at least
not in the time that the land was a colony or protectorate. If I remember correctly, the name
was given it because of the sound the thunder made over those hills. It resembled the roar of
lions."
He leaned forward. "You see, when the monsoon winds meet up with the harmatta during the
month of May, there is a fierce distur-bance at the start of the rainy season. . . "
"Oh," Elizabeth asked faintly, "what's the harmatta?"
Peter rubbed his head.
"Is something the matter, Pete? Are you feeling all right?"
"Yes," he said, attempting to smile. "Just a mild headache. I imagine from trying to read on the
plane."
"You mean you might have done it last night, don't you? I'm sorry about that. I already said
that several times."
"Yes, I know." He took her hands in his. "Most likely I would not have been able to finish it in
any case. It doesn't matter, not at all. All right?"
He leaned towards her and brushed his lips against her hair. "The harmatta is the wind blowing
south from the Sahara. Strangely, its effects are cooling over Sierra Leone. The red dust,
which accompanies it, is the ferraric soil picked up from the land's surface. Do you remember
that reddish glow you saw at times over the Bolilands?"
"Yes," Elizabeth said softly, remembering the previous night. That,” Peter continued, “was the
red dust carried by the harmatta. It's lovely to look at from several thousand feet. And the
effects it creates are spectacular, especially those at dawn and dusk when the sun rises and
lowers into it. It is, in part, responsible for some of those visual effects, which you noticed a
while ago. But wait until about 6:00 p. m. when the sun sets, and you'll see what I mean.
"However," Peter added, "the harmatta blowing nearly all day and all night, with that red dust,
does give bodies, houses, almost everything it touches the effect of having been rusted." Peter
laughed.
"You'll find, staying out in it a while, that a shower is a blessing."
"Look," Elizabeth said, dropping his hand. "There's the city." It stood a long, lean rectangle
between mountain range and sea. "Isn't it beautiful?" She turned towards him as if inviting him
to share in her pleasure. "It might be Greece, but it's Africa. Incredible! Those same colors
though. That city of perfectly white buildings and a turquoise sea."
"Yes, love." He remembered a time that had been far happier than the last few months. But
perhaps in this sunnier climate the needed changes would take place, he thought. Maybe it was
a good sign, this reaction of hers. Perhaps Lion Mountain might be the answer after all.
"I've never been in a jungle before!" Elizabeth called out excitedly. It wasn't what one would
call a jungle, he thought, but if it makes her happy. . .
Below, the airstrip of Lungi widened as the plane dove towards it. The terminal building --
spread-out, low-lying, fringed in palms--grew larger as they drew near.