Everfair (41 page)

 

Bookerville, Everfair, March 1918

The long misery of the rainy season must simply be endured. Martha fantasized sometimes of cropping off her hair. It would save so much effort, besides feeling so much cooler—but what would George say? And how odd she would look.

Heat and grease would have to suffice to keep her crowning glory in order. In so many ways it was a blessing that the war's torrent of wounded had run dry. Most trivially she could stay inside, out of the frizzing damp, and feed the fire. The brazier blazed beneath her ministrations. The iron comb balanced on its edge had now, she knew from past experience, reached the correct temperature. She picked it up by its ceramic handle.

Glancing down doubtfully at the royal head between her knees, Martha took a deep breath. She'd had nineteen years of practice. She was good enough at this to style her own hair. But what if she accidentally burned the princess? There would surely be some horrible punishment.

Mwadi twisted to look back and up. “Ready!”

Martha had divided the princess's hair into eight sections. Beginning with the easiest, the one on the forward right, she stroked the hot straightening comb out from Mwadi's thick roots, along the wooly shafts, to their kinking ends. The smell was nice, like pressed clothes. As soon as she'd finished with one parted-off area Martha braided it up.

While her hair gradually became glossy as satin, the princess talked nonstop. Did Martha know that Mwadi had her own shongun? And that she had already been given lessons in aiming and shooting it—though not as many lessons as her brother—but maybe that only meant that Ilunga was stupider? Even if he was four seasons older—but men often matured more slowly than women, did they not?

Reflecting on her husband's relative youth, Martha was glad the girl's onward rushing words allowed no opportunity for a response. She focused on folding aside the delicate ears, on reheating the comb exactly enough to continue the miraculous transformation. By the time she was finished with Mwadi's kitchen, the monologue had turned to analyzing the differences between her royal parents on one side, the white settlers on another, and the Negro settlers on yet a third. And so it continued as Martha pressed the rest of the princess's head.

“I want to change the world. But my father will never pick me as his heir over slow-as-mud Ilunga, so I've decided to seek other avenues. Maybe a career abroad like Mademoiselle Toutournier advocates—what do
you
think, Mrs. Albin?”

Choking down her antipathy, Martha turned the question. “I think your hair is long enough that I may fashion it into a very becoming coiffure. Hold still—”

But Mwadi must spin around and throw her arms about Martha's neck. “Oh! Oh! Would you? You would? I will love you always and forever!”

This seemed to be the case, for in the following days the princess spent nearly every waking hour in Martha's presence. Having put away that masculine throwing knife and adopted civilized dress on her arrival, she'd become nearly indistinguishable from Bookerville's most proper young ladies. Martha herself saw to her hair, and Mwadi's manner of speaking had already shown the benefits of her education abroad.

Unfortunately, the princess was not a Christian. Assuming it as her personal responsibility to remedy this sad state of affairs, Martha devoted several rain-clouded afternoons to witnessing, praying, and reading aloud from the Bible.

She had never had a daughter of her own. The work was a labor of love.

At last the rains lessened somewhat, and George set forth on a much-delayed expedition. Though Martha still didn't feel safe putting the hot comb in Mwadi's hands, she found it soothing to let the girl oil her scalp and brush her hair. They sat on stools on the far side of the ditch surrounding the house. The sun, weak and watery, felt wonderful on the skin of Martha's throat as she laid her head back on the princess's lap. Relaxing under its spell, she neglected to lead the conversation as she should have. The princess filled the silence inappropriately:

“So tell me how it is to be married to a white man.”

The heat of Martha's shame was warmer the sun. It burned her face from the inside and drew the spit from her mouth like a sponge. “I—we—we are all God's children,” she stammered.

“Yes, but can he … you know … does he have a good—”

“I'm not going to tell you anything an unmarried girl shouldn't hear!” Though of course poor Mwadi's upbringing had been much different than most Christians' … She relented somewhat. “We have normal marital relations.”

“Then you wouldn't welcome a change?”

“A change? What sort of a—” Martha's voice cracked. It was too loud. “What sort of change?” The words came out in a whisper that was equally wrong.

Mwadi leaned forward. “My mother and my father, they grow tired of being told how to rule their own country. The government is going to have to take on a new form. The whites could be sent home to Europe. Perhaps there may be fighting? Unless the Mote retires itself.”

“But—but the king and queen are themselves on the Mote!”

“Each with only one vote.”

Martha's earlier warmth deserted her and she sat erect. What time was it? The bright but sunless sky above kept the day's passage a secret from her. It wasn't only darkness that hid things.

She checked the pocket watch Chester had given her for her last birthday. Six-thirty. According to the drummers, George would return from his journey to close the last field clinic in Lusambo before eight. River travel was fast, but he would be tired, wanting to eat and rest. Rocking twice on her stool for momentum, she rose to go inside and prepare her husband's supper. Mwadi protested that she hadn't finished with Mrs. Albin's hair; Martha assured the girl she had, and efficiently wound her loose locks into a homely bun. She didn't want to have to listen to any further insinuations as to the nature of her marriage.

George had promised to love her eternally, and he had been absent for just three nights; even so, she'd missed him terribly. For his part, he'd probably had his fill of smoked fish and grilled breadfruit by now.

She and the princess cut apart the pair of chickens she had scalded and plucked that morning, rubbed them in precious spices and a few local herbs, and set them in a clay dish in the house engine's steam chamber to cook.

It was just as well she had help making the cornmeal porridge, what the Bah-Looba hereabouts called ugali—it took both hands to stir as it thickened. Mwadi held the pot firmly in place over the engine's geyser. Then that was transferred into its serving dish, which went into the lower, larger steam chamber as they cleaned the greens, which it was now time to add to the chicken.

To bleed off the steam filling the chamber holding the chicken stew, Martha blew the engine's whistle. Over its dying note she heard a welcome shout: “All right! All right! I've come fast as I could.”

“George!” Dropping the whistle's string, she plunged out of the steam shed and directly into her laughing husband's arms. “George! Supper's almost ready—”

“Supper! Is that all you can think about?” He kissed her heartily. “And here I believed it was always me on your mind.” He escorted her inside. Princess Mwadi had set up the small collapsible table by herself and was busy sorting out napkins, spoons, and individual shallow bowls. George liked native foods, but he preferred not to eat with his hands, and Martha thought it best to avoid spreading contagion by sharing a common plate.

Of course her husband did the supper justice. During second helpings he asked after news of the Mote, which had met without him while he was in Lusambo. Martha didn't know quite what to say, though she could see her silence puzzled him.

“The drumming was a bit vague,” she said as an excuse. “But surely if you were to write to Albert or your mother, they'd give you news of what passed.”

“Or you could ask Nenzima or Old Kanna for the real story,” said Mwadi.

“The real story? As opposed to the false account my mother would provide? A notorious liar…”

“Princess!” Martha reprimanded her charge. To the girl's credit, she looked uneasy at having spoken so.

Still, she defended herself. “The Poet may not know the truth. If she doesn't know it, she can't tell it.”

George's face became grave. He set down his spoon and pushed aside his cup. “What is the truth our nation's Poet doesn't know?”

Martha stood and began gathering up the dirty dishes.

“No, no, sit again, my dear. Our guest has something important to relate.” He put his hand on her arm to restrain her and she sat back down.

“Well,
my
mother—” Mwadi paused, then continued. “
My
mother, our
queen,
says that there is discontent. With the whites. And perhaps with all the colonists,” she added, with a sideways look at Martha.

“What sort of discontent? What is the trouble?”

Then it came out. Everfair's constitution had been imposed on the country. As had its Mote. Even the name had been given to the country by foreigners, taken from a foreign tongue.

“But English is our official language!” George protested.

That was another of the royal grievances.

“But what should it be—French? No, I suppose an African language—which one? Kee-Swa-Hee-Lee? Lin-Gah-Lah? And which dialect? English unites rather than divides us, does it not?”

The girl avoided answering that, and finished her litany of repeated complaints with what she said was called the most recent insult: the Poet's drive to have the date of Mr. Owen's death declared a holiday.

To Martha's surprise, her husband listened wordlessly for the most part—except for his short outburst about English. Judging from his remarks, he finally seemed inclined to take the princess's report seriously. Eyeing her prot
é
g
é
e's rolling hips as she helped clear the table, her smooth brow and velvety smile, her sprightly step as she set off to take their food scraps to the village goats, Martha couldn't help but wonder: Was the virtue of Mwadi's arguments simply her youth? Had George tired of his wife's embrace—the embrace of, to put it plainly, an old woman?

She sat alone in the room they'd decided would be hers, staring at her reflection in her seldom-used hand mirror. Its surface was spotted, marred with age. Her face, also.

Vanity. She scraped her hair tight into two unbecoming braids.

But when she had lain in bed for only a few moments, her husband entered and lay with her, eager as on the night of his return from England, the night he'd shown how sincerely he'd pledged to her his heart. As always, he made her laugh and cry. In the calm afterward, Martha told him of her fears and jealousies. And then he made her laugh again.

 

Mogadishu, Somalia, to Mombasa, Kenya, May 1918

Tink had missed four Grand Motes. That was as many as during his last visit to Macao, two years ago, and this time he'd been unable to deputize one of the Tams to take his place. But he could not have missed his little brother's marriage; the journey had had to be made. At least with the world at peace, it had gone a little more quickly. But only a little. Long stops in Bangkok and Kolkata, in Mumbai—most trying to his patience—and just now in Mogadishu, had made manifest to him the small differences between delays caused by war and by trade.

Mombasa and Dar-es-Salaam were the last remaining cities before they crossed into Everfair.
Okondo
made excellent time. Soon he would be home. A matter of days; not much longer than a market, if he was lucky.

The last visible spires of the centuries-old port sank below the Earth's curve. Ancient Mogadishu was newly free in the wake of a postwar rebellion against Italy; Everfair had supported its liberation, and Tink had happily left the aircanoe for a few hours to verify the rebels' continued success. But he was even happier to see the city fall behind them. The curve of the coast filled the rearward vista.

He shut the wooden blinds on the stern-facing window of his enclosed cabin and felt suddenly cramped for space. The new gondolas allowed faster speeds, and thus longer voyages. Also, higher altitudes. And yet he missed the old ways, the cold winds blowing on him as he flew the open vessels—though on such a one had his Lily died.

Perhaps now he would never be married. Little Min-Cheng could be responsible for the family's line of descent. Rosalie had turned Tink down when he proposed on what he thought would be an auspicious day. The Tam brothers' half-joking attempts to make a match between him and either—or both—of their sisters had been likewise ill-fated. The awkwardness of that situation had made it necessary first for him to find other lodgings and then, he sighed to think, for the Tams to return to China. Of course, the downturn in arms orders had provided a convenient excuse, but they had ignored other opportunities.

Opportunities like the one that had led to his sister Bee-Lung sharing this dark, crowded cabin with him.

Carefully edging around the hammock in which they took turns sleeping, Tink got nearly to the door before kicking over a basket of glass jars. They rolled back and forth on the floor, clashing noisily against one another at
Okondo
's least tip and sway, evading his searching hands as if intelligently guided. By the minimal light the blinds let in, he could see his sister sitting upright.

“Apologies,” said Tink. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

“No, it was time to get up,” Bee-Lung said. That was a lie. They'd left Wadajir airfield not much more than one and a half hours ago. His sister would have just had time for a nap.

“Is anything damaged?”

Tink knew that these jars were being kept in their tiny room because they contained healing compounds more precious than the supplies his sister allowed the crew to stow with
Okondo
's freight. “As far as I can tell, everything is intact. You may wish to inspect things yourself,” he said, catching hold of the last fugitive container. “Here.” He presented Bee-Lung with the refilled basket and slipped back to open the blinds again.