The Liberating Sun

The click and hiss of Noam’s beer can was more enticing than any commercial. In the arid Kalahari, the experience of anything even vaguely cool was a luxury. Our modest car fridge could hold little more than a six-pack. Each beer was ritually announced and piously consumed. This had nothing to do with alcohol, and everything to do with the glistening condensation on the printed aluminium.

Before us, demanding attention, was the pan. It stretched away to all horizons, shaded with patches of olive-green grass cropped short by the roaming gemsbok. While the dreamy sun began its descent, the heat was simmering at its peak. The tufty bushes fringing the pan shivered under a pervasive heat haze.

“I love this place,” I said, sipping the beer with an exaggerated sigh. It was almost as though I could taste the barley – the actual earthbound organism that had gone into the delinquent beverage.

As oppressive as the heat was, it was also liberating. It seemed to cleanse my mind of its usual scurrying sense of panic. Out there, I could think of little else besides the immense and satisfying beauty of true remoteness. And yet, my reverie was cut short by Barrack’s amused voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the lioness: she is here.”

I spun round, slapping the beer into Noam’s belly, to watch it explode in a heart-wrenching spatter of cold froth. But I had no time to mourn, for my eyes made contact with another’s. The cub stopped with a paw raised in mid-step and blinked at me with exactly the same amount of surprise that I offered him.

I found myself tumbling into the safety of our Land Rover, wincing as my knee struck the fridge. The girls were in the shower. It was a stronghold that might have been safe, if it was anything more than a wooden spiral wall. The lack of door and ceiling meant it was a far cry from being lion-proof. Robyn’s face popped up above the wall. Gabriel flatfooted the Land Rover and we sawed through the sand to their rescue. He smashed the doors open for the girls to scramble inside, with nothing but a towel to cover them both.

All the while, lady lioness was yawning at us with a scornful frown. She was certainly offended at the unsuitable level of activity being exercised in that heat. Gabriel reverse-carved out of there, jacked up the handbrake and giggled to himself. Lady lioness proceeded to saunter into the shower only to reappear with Robyn’s bra hanging carelessly from her maw.

“Last sip?” I chuckled, offering Gabriel the empty can.