Everfair (29 page)

Everyone in the cast sat in the kitchen, drinking tea. Rima missed coffee. They had that in the coast cities; up the Nile, too.

“Are you ready to replace me?” Her lover gestured invitingly at the bench where she sat.

“Naw, but you could slide over an make room.”

Lisette must be at least thirty-five from the hints she let slip. She seemed years younger: no sagging at her neckline—none anywhere! Rima could attest to that. Still, perhaps the Frenchwoman wasn't that well suited for ing
é
nue roles any more.

Lisette scooted to the bench's far end and Rima took the vacated spot. Swathed in an unconventional tunic and trousers of the lightest of Egyptian cottons, Lisette looked charming. Like always. And she smelled wonderful—only the slightest bit of sweat under the complex scent she wore. Rima was reminded of lotuses, of golden fruits, of the juices of dark, hidden vines and sun-soaked leaves. Her mouth watered.

So maybe she was a bull dagger. In Everfair that didn't seem to bother folks much, except the missionary people.

The Elephant Queen put a plate down in front of her: fried eggs and kwanga sticks. Rima hated kwanga, but she was a trouper. She unwrapped and ate both her sticks even though they tasted like hardened library paste. Somebody had sweltered over a pot cooking them for her.

Everyone else but Lisette was African and used to this kind of food. Sir Jamison had recruited The Butterfly and The Bushbaby in Bukavu; The Bird and The Elephant Queen and King were originally from Chibanda, and had joined the cast via Josina's father's court. Mola, The Elephant Doctor, had come on foot all the way from Boma; officially, the Belgian government caretaking Leopold's legacy allowed their Congolese citizens the right of immigration to Everfair, but unofficially it was discouraged so strongly it was almost impossible. Blockades on the river, sharpshooters posted over the best air routes—the invader was dead and the war was over, but hostilities continued.

Thank goodness the show's remaining speaking parts were small. Except for Mo-La and Bo-La, her character's younger brother and sister. They were played by Josina's son and daughter, thirteen-year-old Ilunga and eleven-year-old Mwadi. No political intrigue there.

Rima had barely finished her meal when Sir Jamison came in, followed at a trying-to-be-discreet interval by Fwendi. He pointed out it was time to leave for the theater. It was only a short walk away, but an irritating one: the rain didn't look like it knew how to stop.

The Grand Ideal Cultural Circus Building was where Leopold's thieves used to keep their rubber, and the prisoners who harvested it too: an old jail and warehouse combined. It was pretty obvious what those creeps had cared about: the airy offices on the Circus's upper floor carried a whiff of the grey sap balls once stored there. By contrast, the muddy pit below the stage Sir Jamison's crew had erected had needed a deep and thorough excavation before the crap and blood and piss and puke left there stopped stinking everything up. That's what the Lead Parents said; they were local and they knew the construction workers.

At least the building's brick walls and tin roof kept the worst of the rain out. The dressing rooms—only two, one for women and one for men—were crowded and windowless, lighted by hanging lamps shaded with pierced metal globes. Since tricks involving her fake mechanical arm were part of the run-through, Rima got into her whole costume. Not that there was much to it.

Flash-bangs went off on cue and smoke spouted out of her brass glove more or less when it was supposed to. The stage rotated so the right scenery showed for every act, and the steam-cranked scroll ran smoothly behind her, depicting her journey to the underground realm of Everland. The musicians didn't have the score memorized in the right order, though. They worked on that awhile. Then there was a short break before showtime. Not long enough to leave the theater. She met Lisette on the steam porch off the building's back.

“Are you hungry?” her lover asked, leaning her bicycle against the rail surrounding the engine. She gestured at a gourd fastened above her machine's smaller boiler. “I brought you sugar-baked plantains.”

“Naw, I don't wanna be all logy when it come time to perform. Thanks anyways.”

Rima stood under the far edge of the roof's overhang, wishing the coming night would make things cooler. Except where it butted up against the Circus, the steam porch didn't have walls. Just thick poles holding up the thatch. It was wide enough that even when the wind blew the equipment and the precious coal imported from Angola stayed dry.

They were alone. Soon, though, someone would come to shovel more fuel into the boiler's furnace. Rima took advantage of the moment, turning suddenly and rushing over to pull Lisette's belly against her scantily skirted hips. Bless the night that she got taught how to make love with other women. She bent and nuzzled the soft blond hair of her first and only's head, milk and honey. Lisette's lips were pliable enough, her polished teeth parted willingly enough—but the kisses she gave back seemed distracted. Rima opened her eyes and saw Lisette's eyes were open, too. She was staring past Rima's shoulder at the steam engine.

Ah. Rima had figured out about that quirk of Lisette's months ago. She let her loose a moment, then rearranged things so Lisette held the rail and faced the big machine. Rima pressed herself against those fat thighs and darling buttocks, that dimpled, curving back. She ran her nose down from Lisette's kitchen along her neck to where her spine sunk into a dip between mounds of flesh firm as living bread. Lifted the cloth of her lover's shirt and licked the salt gathering there.

A gasp of breath was her reward. She dragged her body free of contact so she could use her hands. Tracing upward with the tips of her fingers, she caressed the backs of Lisette's knees and legs through the filmy fabric, cupped the plump swell of her ass. Then, scraping her nails oh-so-lightly along its underside to the warm—

Bang! Wood on wood—a door slamming shut—or open? Rima dropped her arms, raised her head, and opened her eyes again. It had gotten dark. Light spilled onto the steam porch from the Circus's rear entrance. A woman's silhouette blocked it.

“Lisette? Ch
é
rie?” It was the Poet.

They would be invisible to someone dazzled by lamps. Rima held still and kept her mouth shut. So did her lover. The Poet took a few steps in their direction before retreating. The door closed much more quietly than it had opened.

“You think she smell us?” Rima asked. She meant it as a joke, but Lisette didn't laugh. When Rima tried to hug her some more and to at least position their legs together for a nice ride, Lisette wouldn't cooperate. Her arms stiffened, and her back, too, and they wouldn't loosen up under Rima's kneading. So, despite the tight ache like a cramp in her pussy, she gave up.

Anyway, it had to be time to go in. Time to check her makeup—it was sure to be a mess—and to re-glove and take care of the thousand and one details that would help the show go all right. Which it better, because this was her debut as lead.

All wound up the way she was, Rima danced and sang like a devil high on lightning. She didn't just speak her lines, she set them off like fireworks. She whizzed and banged and popped, and when the house lamps came on over the audience, the cast took their final bow to applause loud as the town's famous cataracts. She was a star. Rima, Rima, burning bright, in the jungle of the night.

Here, in the darkness, she shone. She could hardly wait to shine in the light.

 

Kisangani, Everfair, July 1914

Matty surged to his feet with the rest of the audience. He started to clap and thought better of it: His own play. He shouldn't. But, beside him, Fwendi snapped her flesh fingers together and shot sparks from her brass hand, smiling an enormous smile that more than made up for his abstention.

Of course, this was far from the first time she'd seen the play she'd inspired. But it was the first time she'd seen his new final scene performed in a theater. Apparently she liked it.

She nodded and hissed at him, “Bow! Accept their thanks, and graciously!”

He felt his face flush. She was right. He complied but made a jest of himself, flourishing his arms in silly, overly complicated patterns and nearly touching his nose to his knees. Still the applause continued. He leaned as if to address the Mote member beside her and whispered in Fwendi's ear, “You ought to acknowledge them, too, you know; a curtsey perhaps?”

She frowned. She had always rejected his desire to publicize the real-life origins of
Wendi-La,
though to him they seemed obvious. Was this of a piece with her reluctance to admit their relationship, to set her face against the disapproval attending the disparity in their ages?

The actors had come out for a third curtain call and remained onstage. The applause refused to die down.

Then, behind him, Matty heard a high voice singing. It wavered a bit, but the tune was clear, and everyone here knew the words. They'd all joined in the chorus by the time the anonymous singer reached its second line. The embarrassingly long ovation gave way to the national anthem's first verse:

“From many countries we journeyed afar

To find the place where our dreams could come true;

With eyes wide open, we dared to plan a paradise:

A home for all and any, our home in you.”

So moving, the combination of the colony's many timbres and accents. The song seemed to satisfy an unrecognized need, to supply whatever it was the applause had been holding out for. Matty craned his head to snatch a glimpse of the singer who'd started the song, but the crowd defeated him. Afterward, as they filed out, he thought he saw Daisy slipping away between people standing in obstinate groups or walking too slowly. He couldn't get past them. He didn't want to abandon Fwendi or drag her with him, either, and the others in their party would wonder at his haste. And what did it matter?

Outside, darkness and dampness ruled. Rain dropped ceaselessly on the Circus's thatch awning, tiny patterings like the dance steps of the clouds' children. Matty positioned himself and Fwendi under a lamp so the others would see them—despite his care, he'd gotten ahead of his guests. But there came Albert and Winthrop, shoulder to shoulder, so deep in conversation they bumped and jostled unheedingly against the other theater patrons. And there were two of the African members of the Grand Mote he'd invited, Loyiki and Nenzima. King and Queen Josina had declined. But in the month since his return to Kisangani all had shown signs of favoring the British side in the upcoming conflict.

If this were a more cosmopolitan city, he'd treat everyone to supper at some hotel or restaurant now. Instead, he had invited them to his home.

They walked to the rail for a rope swing meant to carry pairs of pedestrians from the theater steps to the walkway along the center of Fina Avenue. A perfect hostess, Fwendi caught up a swing and offered it to Albert and Winthrop with a murmur of concern: “You won't mind waiting for us in the wet? It's only a short ways—”

In answer, Albert produced a couple of fan hats, the pleated, folding, circular headgear invented by settlers fed up with Everfair's endless precipitation. He and Winthrop jovially donned them, then stepped onto opposite sides of the swing's wooden footrest and gripped its rope, Winthrop's hands well above Albert's due to his greater height. The fan hats proved awkwardly wide, their edges bumping together; the two got around that problem by each leaning slightly to their right. Matty pushed them off and they sailed easily over the sunken road, which was busy with the after-theater rush: dog- and goat-carts, and steam bicycles pulling passenger compartments instead of their more usual freight wagons.

To Nenzima and Loyiki, the girl offered a dignified, covered four-seater suspended by chains. He and Fwendi joined them in it. This heavier swing operated by a spring-wound pulley set. Loyiki did the honors and they landed and deployed their umbrellas mere minutes behind the two engineers.

He took Fwendi's arm and led the way. Loyiki and Nenzima fell in after them, and Albert and Winthrop brought up the rear. Soon the throng generated by the play's end dissipated. Fwendi lit her hand to show the path, keeping it well away from the oiled paper of the umbrella sheltering them. He gazed up surreptitiously into her lovely, serious face. He should marry her. He told himself the only difficulty was his age, and not the bad dreams brought on by the mere idea of a wedding. Though he understood from his inquiries into the natives' mores that the disapproval she feared would evaporate if their bonds were formalized.

At the corner of Vuba Street, he helped Fwendi descend the stairs in the side of the walkway. Now there was nothing for it but to wade straight through the brownish water. It looked to be about ankle high. Their feet would be soaked, but they were almost there. He turned to point out the lamps beside his front door and encountered Nenzima's swiftly veiled look of—what? Pity? Could that be right? What reason had she to pity him? She was probably older than he was.

Winthrop gallantly offered to transport Nenzima on his back to the house's raised entrance. She accepted with just a hint of coquettishness. If Matty were a bigger man, he could carry Fwendi across. Unless to do so would remind him of one of his marriage dreams, of falling under an impossible weight and drowning in mud.

Laughing voices came to them as they removed their shoes and put on the sandals Matty had thoughtfully had his servants provide. The cast party was, of necessity, being held here, but Matty had insisted it be confined to the courtyard. They would look in on it later.

Clapham opened the dining room door. As a concession to this continent's customs, the table was built low, the seats surrounding it more like footstools with backs than chairs, to Matty's eyes. In addition to plates carved from native woods, cutlery forged from local ores, a central runner of barkcloth, and a lamp with the requisite ball-shaped shade, Matty had ordered carafes of four different palm wine varieties to be placed in readiness for his party's return. All was as he had directed.