Chapter Thirteen
SOUTH AFRICA WAS BEAUTIFUL.
No question about it. Here was beauty on a grand scale. Epic beauty. Awesome beauty. The sort of beauty that man, over the centuries, had tried to imitate with his cathedrals and temples and pyramids, his feeble attempts at grandeur. Keith Webster was well traveled. He had been to Carnac in Egypt, to the Great Wall of China, to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. He had stood on top of the Empire State Building, marveled at the Colosseum in Rome, and gazed in wonder at the Taj Mahal in India. Now, standing on Table Mountain with the wind in his hair and the city of Cape Town sprawled out below him, he thought of all those places and laughed. Just as God must have laughed:
You call that beauty? You call that greatness? Is that really the best you can do?
Keith Webster had been in the country for three weeks. He was flying back to America tomorrow, and though he longed to see Eve - it was the longest they had been apart since they married - he realized he would be sorry to leave Cape Town. Not just because it was beautiful. Cape Town was magical in a way that Keith had never experienced before. But because it was here, in South Africa, that he had finally managed to bond with his son. For Keith Webster, Cape Town would always be the city that brought Max back to him. The city of hope, of joy, of rebirth.
It was Eve's idea.
"You and Max should go away somewhere together, on your own. A boys' camping holiday. Just think what fun you'll have!"
Keith thought what fun they'd have: Max ignoring him, pouring scorn on all his suggestions for activities, glaring stony-faced at his jokes. Laughing while he failed to erect the tent. Pleading to be allowed to return to his mother.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea. I've never really seen Max as the camping type."
It had been two years since Lexi Templeton's kidnapping and rescue; two years since Max had sat in the back of the family's limousine and admitted to his father that he hated his cousins.
Nonsense, Max. We don't hate anyone.
That's what Keith Webster had told his son. But even as he said the words, the thought hit him: He hates me, too. He always has. Up until that day, Keith had never admitted this ugly truth, not even to himself. It was easier to make excuses for Max's behavior.
He's overprotective of his mother because she's so vulnerable.
Because he's an only child.
Because...
Because...
What had Max's teacher said? Yes, that was it. Your son is extraordinarily gifted, Dr. Webster. Gifted children often struggled to form attachments. It was nothing to worry about. The boy would grow out of it.
But deep down, Keith Webster knew the truth.
Max hated him.
The only thing he didn't know was why.
Now, though, Max no longer talked about hating Lexi Templeton. Indeed, in the years since he first visited her in the hospital, the boy seemed to have developed some sort of rapport with his poor, deaf cousin. Friendship would be overstating it. But there was something between the two children, some understanding, a flashing of the eyes whenever they met, that had given Keith Webster hope.
If he can learn to love Lexi, maybe one day he can learn to love me?
Keith hadn't wanted to go on this camping trip, but thank God he had. God bless Eve! The vacation had changed everything.
At ten years old, almost eleven, Max was still small for his age. He could easily pass for eight or nine, although grown-ups who knew him well - his teachers, his baseball coach, even his uncle Peter - all noted something jarringly adult beneath the boyish exterior. An old soul - that's what people called him. Around Keith, Max was usually sullen and silent. But with others, he was highly articulate.
Keith waited for his son to pooh-pooh the idea of the "boys' holiday," certain that Max would treat it with the same withering scorn he poured on all Keith's efforts to bridge the emotional gap between them. But incredibly, Max was eager to go.
"Can we, Dad? I've never been to South Africa. Lexi and Robert go all the time; it's supposed to be amazing. Pleeease?"
"You realize Mommy won't be going." Keith tried to conceal his surprise. "It would just be you and me."
"I know, but Mommy's already been there, loads of times, so I don't think she minds. Please?"
Keith felt close to tears. Max wanted to go. With him.
He'd even called him Dad.
Was this it? After ten long years, could this really be the turning point?
"Come on, Dad, come over here. Look how high up we are!"
Keith turned to see Max, right at the canyon's edge, hopping from boulder to boulder like a mountain goat. He's fearless. Not like me. Clouds snaked around him like cigarette smoke. Occasionally a larger cloud would descend from the heavens and engulf the boy completely. Whenever that happened, Keith felt his heart stop.
"Buddy, I've told you, get back from the edge. Quit fooling around like that, it's not safe."
Cape Town was the last stop on their great South African adventure, and the only place where they were staying in a hotel rather than camping. Up until now they'd traveled from reserve to reserve and from camp to camp across the Karoo with their guide, Katele, a permanently smiling six-foot Bantu native with the sort of six-pack abs Keith had only ever seen on television commercials for torturous-looking exercise equipment. He looked like an extra from one of the early Tarzan movies. Keith felt weak and inadequate in his presence, but he tried not to show it.
Katele told a wide-eyed Max: "The Great Karoo is the largest natural ecosystem in South Africa - and one of the world's great scientific wonders. Its rocks contain fossil remains spanning three hundred and ten million years. You can do everything here. Hot-air balloon flights, horseback riding, stargazing. We have some of the best rock climbing in the country."
"What about the animals?"
Katele grinned. "You won't be disappointed. We have animals you haven't even heard of, my friend. Kudu, gemsbok, aardwolf, klipspringer. And plenty that you have: black eagles, baboons, rhinos, mountain zebras."
"Can you hunt them?"
Keith was shocked. "We're here to observe beauty, Max, not kill it. I'm sorry, Katele."
But the guide was on Max's side.
"It's quite all right, sir. Of course the boy can hunt if he wishes. I'll take you to Lemoenfontein. The big-game hunting there is exceptional."
"Can we, Dad? Pleease?"
"We'll see," said Keith.
He did not approve of ten-year-old boys handling guns. In fact, he'd argued with Eve on this very point only days before they left, when she finally admitted to giving Max her grandfather's pistol.
"He's never used it, darling," she assured him. "It's never even been out of the safe. Besides, it's so old, I'm sure it doesn't work anymore."
"I wouldn't bet on it." Keith turned the pristine Glock over in his hands. In its own way, it was a thing of beauty.
"I gave it to him as a token," said Eve. "Something from his family heritage to make him feel grown up. Don't be a spoilsport about it."
Max begged to be allowed to bring the gun to Africa.
"Mommy got me the papers specially. I'm allowed to take it because it's a family air balloon."
"Heirloom, darling." Eve smiled indulgently, rolling her eyes at Keith as if to say, See how innocent he is?
"I'm not sure, Max. A gun is not a toy."
But in the end, Keith was so overjoyed to be in Max's good graces for once, he'd let his happiness cloud his judgment. The gun was packed, but on the strict condition that it would not, under any circumstances, be used.