A Change of Climate: A Novel (22 page)

Back in her cell Anna sat with the book on her knees. She heard her mother’s voice: “One of the
Windows on the World
series, Anna.” She flicked through the pages.
(There is no fruit more refreshing than the golden pulp of paw-paw … natives often reverence their ancestors … Today ostrich-keepers look back with wistful eyes at those days when fashion favored their wares.”
She closed the book, and stared at the purple-blue mountains on the cover. The hills of heaven, she thought. Another night gathered in the corners of the room.

Lucy’s visit seemed to Anna to indicate that release might be at hand. Don’t raise your hopes, she said to herself; but she hardly slept.

In the morning she made no attempt to eat. She had developed a disgust for the tepid water in its metal jug, and had to make an effort of will—tip her head back, hold her throat open—to pour it into herself. She was thirsty all the time, and once again shaky and cold, her nerves taut.

She wanted peace from her own thoughts, from their relentless, spinning nature. She realized that not once since she had been in prison had she prayed. It had not crossed her mind to do it. She looked into her heart, on this sixth morning of her imprisonment, and found a void where the faith should be.

At ten o’clock the cell door was unlocked and the colonel came in. “How are you today, Mrs. Eldred?”

“I want a bath,” she said instantly. “I want news of my husband. I want you to let me go.”

The colonel held up his hand: peace, peace. “Mrs. Eldred, your husband is here. I have come to escort you to my office, where you will find both Mr. Eldred and a representative of the High Commissioner. Will that do for you, for now?”

Ralph rose from his chair when he saw her, his face dismayed. “Anna! Good God, what has happened?”

For a moment she thought she might faint. She saw that Ralph’s face was puffy and bruised, his lip was cut. Her stomach tightened and churned; a spasm of physical and moral disgust shook her, and she felt suddenly raw, as if her skin had been peeled; I can’t bear it, she thought. She loved him, he was her child, and it made her lightheaded with rage to think that he had suffered a moment’s pain, and from these swine … The room swam and shivered, the ceiling fan churned the air, the colonel put his hand under her elbow, and a stranger wedged into the corner of the office bobbed up from his chair and said, “Cooper from Cape Town.”

She found herself sitting. She grasped Cooper’s damp, extended hand, not seeming to realize what it was for. “She’s been a silly girl,” the colonel said. “Refusing food.”

“And you let her?” Ralph said.

“What would you have preferred, Mr. Eldred, did you want me to force-feed her?”

“It would be better if you sat down, Mr. Eldred,” Cooper from Cape Town said, “so that we can conduct our business in a seemly and civilized manner.”

“We’re in the wrong country for that,” Ralph said.

But he did sit; took Anna’s hand and touched her dry lips with his.

“May I begin?” Cooper said. Too young a man, ill at ease, sweating inside his businessman’s suit. He cleared his throat. “To be frank, this is turning into something of an embarrassment.”

Ralph leapt from his chair again. “Embarrassment? We are taken away in the middle of the night and detained without charge, I am threatened with violence and my wife is starved, the mission staff are terrorized, and you call it an embarrassment?”

“Mr. Eldred, you are not helping your case,” Cooper said. “Of course you are aggrieved, but as Her Majesty’s representative my duty is to extract you from the unfortunate situation in which you have placed yourself, and to do this without damage to the relations of our two governments.”

“What do you mean?” Anna swooped forward to the edge of her chair. “What do you mean, the situation in which we have placed ourselves?”

“Please, Mrs. Eldred,” the colonel said mildly. “Listen to the man. He’s come a long way to talk to you.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Cooper said. “Now, the situation roughly speaking is this; you can as I understand it be released almost immediately, but there are certain conditions with which you must comply.” Cooper took out his handkerchief and swabbed his forehead. His no-color eyes traveled from side to side.

“I think it would be easier for you,” the colonel said, “if I left you alone with your nationals.”

“Properly speaking,” Cooper said, “that is what should occur.”

The colonel smiled slightly. “You are not afraid of Mr. Eldred?” Cooper didn’t reply. “If I hear the sound of your skull being pounded on the floor, Mr. Cooper, I shall come right away to your relief. Depend upon it.”

The colonel went out, closing the door on them. There was a moment’s silence. “It will be easiest if you resign,” Cooper said.

“Never,” Ralph said. “Let them throw me out, if that’s what they want. I’m not going to do anything to make their lives easier.”

“We have been in constant touch with your employers in Clerkenwell. Your mission society.”

“So they know exactly what’s happened?”

“They do, and they are less than delighted. With you, I mean, Mr. Eldred. I am assured they have forsworn any political involvement, any whatever.”

“It’s easy,” Anna said. “From Clerkenwell.”

“There is a suggestion …” the man hesitated. “That is, I am empowered to put to you a suggestion—”

“Yes?”

“That it would, as it were, save face—”

“For whom?”

“—for all concerned … if you were to leave voluntarily rather than be deported …”

“We’ve been through this,” Ralph said.

“… but without altogether quitting, as it were, your field of mission endeavor.”

“Do you speak English, Mr. Cooper?” Anna asked.

The man swallowed. “Do I understand that you have no wish to return to the United Kingdom as of this time?”

“No wish,” Ralph said. “No intention.”

“Mrs. Eldred?”

“I want to go home to Flower Street,” Anna said. “That’s what I want.”

“You know that is impossible.” A note of scolding entered the official’s voice. “The South African government will no longer have you on its territory. But I am directed to put to you, on behalf of your mission society, a proposal that you should take up a post, possibly a temporary one, in Bechuanaland, in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.”

“Clerkenwell is proposing this?”

“I am only the intermediary.”

“What do you mean by temporary?”

“They mean three months, probably,” Anna said. “Until the fuss dies down and the newspapers have forgotten about us and they can sneak us back into England and then sack us.”

“Oh, I hardly think—” Cooper began.

“Shut up, Cooper,” Ralph said. “No one is interested in what you think.”

A silence. They seemed to have reached an impasse. “My husband means,” Anna said, leaning forward, “that it would be better if you just gave us the facts. Where is this post they’re offering?”

“It is at a place called Mosadinyana. Remote, I understand.”

“That makes sense,” Ralph said. “Get us well out of the way.”

Anna put her hand on his arm. “Let’s listen to him.”

“As I understand it,” Cooper said, “the couple who ran the mission station have been repatriated on medical grounds. It is not a place of any size. There is a small school, I am told.” He looked at Anna. “There is a requirement for one teacher—”

“And what would I do?” Ralph said.

“Administer, Mr. Eldred. You would administer.”

“I’ve never heard of this place,” Anna said.

“Your Society describe it to me as a toehold,” Cooper said. “A toehold in the desert.” He seemed pleased with the phrase. “There is the possibility that in the years to come it may grow into something larger.”

“A foothold,” Ralph said.

“Is it on the railway line?”

“Not exactly,” Cooper said.

“What is there besides the school?”

“There might be a trading store,” Cooper said, frowning. “I could look into that.”

“If I went up there,” Ralph said, “do you think there is any possibility that at a later date I might be able to return to Elim?”

Cooper favored them with a thin smile. “Not unless there is a change of government, Mr. Eldred.”

“You are putting us in a very difficult position,” Anna said. “You are asking us to go up-country, to a place we know nothing about—”

“I am required to encourage you to regard it as temporary,” Cooper said. “I am required to assure you that should the posting prove unsuitable you can be replaced. Really, Mrs. Eldred, there is nothing to fear. The South African government—” he hesitated— “that is, it has been indicated to me—the South African government would have no objection to your traveling through their territory to take up this post. But should you refuse the opportunity, they have reserved two seats on a flight to London departing tomorrow.”

Ralph and Anna looked at each other. “Tomorrow,” Anna said. “That’s ludicrous. We couldn’t possibly leave at that sort of notice. We have to put everything in order at Flower Street, it will take a month at least to hand over to someone else.”

“I’m afraid you don’t grasp the situation, Mrs. Eldred. You can never return to Elim, as I imagined I had made adequately clear. After all, there is no one who could give a guarantee as to your conduct.”

“You make us sound like schoolchildren,” Ralph said.

“You are little more, Mr. Eldred.” The man closed his eyes. “Little more.”

Ralph took Anna’s hand. “We must decide.”

“Yes.”

“Anna, you look ill. Perhaps to go home would be best.”

“I’m not ill.”

“I can’t risk you. I love you, Anna.” Cooper looked away in distress.

“If we go home now we will have failed.”

“Oh God,” Ralph said. “I wish we had never seen this bloody country. I wish we’d gone to Dar.”

“No,” Anna said. “I wouldn’t have missed Elim, Ralph.” It will always be the place where we grew up, she thought. I shall never forget Flower Street. She looked up at Cooper. “All right, we’ll go.”

“I congratulate you on a brave decision.” Cooper put his hand out. Ralph ignored it.

In the small hours, the train set them down on an empty platform. Their two bags—their trunks would be packed for them, and sent on later—were placed at their feet; then the train gathered itself for the next haul, and steamed away up the line.

The darkness was total. They heard footsteps approach, shockingly loud. A railway employee called out a curt greeting in Afrikaans. Anna answered him. “We are late. There’s no one to meet us, where can we stay?”

The railway employee was a man of few words. “He says there’s only the waiting room. And it’s here behind us. And he says that everyone knows the train is late. Everyone concerned.”

“They won’t abandon us,” Ralph said. The footsteps retreated.

The waiting room had a cement floor and two wooden benches. It seemed to offer no more comfort than the platform, so they took up their station on the single bench outside. Though it was midsummer, the starlight was cold. They leaned together, their heads touching. “We’re nowhere now,” Anna whispered.

Ralph said, “We are in the heart of Africa.”

“Yes. Nowhere.”

She lay down on the bench, her head on his knees, a cardigan draped over her. His head drooping, he dozed.

Ralph woke to a touch on his shoulder. A torch beam flashed into his face. As soon as he looked up the torch was switched off. An African voice, a man’s, said, “Mr. Eldred, sir. Come, baas, come, madam.”

Hands reached for their bags. Anna stood up, stiff from sleep, disoriented, chilled. Beyond the station compound they saw the lights of a truck. “This is yours?” Ralph asked.

“No, baas.” A silence. Ralph thought, how can I stop them calling me that? I never want to hear that word again. The man said, “It is mine and my brother’s truck, and his brother’s also. Mrs. Pilane, the clinic nurse, has asked me to lift you to the mission.”

“Thank you,” Ralph said. “The train is very late. We thought no one was coming.”

“I was coming,” the man said calmly.

As they approached the truck, they saw by torchlight a half dozen figures rise from the ground, draped in blankets. No one spoke. One by one, the half dozen climbed into the back of the truck, handing up to each other parcels and sacks. “Who are these?” Ralph said.

The man replied, “They are people who are traveling.”

Ralph pushed Anna into the cab of the truck and scrambled in beside her. “Do you work for the mission?” Ralph asked.

“No. There is only Salome. And there is Enock.”

The man did not enlarge on this. He kept his own name to himself, a private possession. They drove on in silence. The track was rough, and stones clattered away from their wheels; ruts jolted their spines. Small branches brushed the sides of the truck with a metallic
click-click-click.
Sometimes branches lashed across the windscreen; the glass protected them, but instinct made them duck. Anna leaned against Ralph, her head on his shoulder. The metal shell filled with their quiet, ragged breathing.

Almost imperceptibly, the sky began to lighten. The road became less bumpy. “We are arriving,” the driver said. The village of Mosadinyana took shape about them: the cattle kraals of plaited thorns, the shaggy thatched roofs of the rondavels, the mud walls which enclosed each yard. The driver pulled up. There was a moment’s stillness; Anna looked at the walls; a pattern was set into them, striped and zigzagged, ochre and dun. The travelers melted away, wrapping their blankets more tightly around them; the women balanced their parcels on their head.

The sun was almost up now, but the pale light could have been dawn or dusk. Anna looked up beyond the village. Her vision filled with low brown hills, an interminable range of hills: like the mountains of the moon. Around the borehole, donkeys bent their necks and plucked at the scrubby ground.

They jolted up to the Mission House a few minutes later. The driver dismounted to take down their bags. “You may give me three shillings,” he said.

“Gladly,” Ralph said. “I am very grateful to you.”

Money changed hands. The Mission House was a low building, its walls gleaming white in the half light. There was a candle burning on a table on the front stoep. As they watched, it was extinguished. The sun burst over the hills, born fully armed: a great disc of searing gold.