Green City in the Sun (53 page)

     However, the conference members could not wholeheartedly agree to total abolition of a people's sacred and deeply ingrained social custom and opted instead for education of those people to help them turn away from such practices by their own wish.

     As far as Grace knew, there had not been an
irua
in this province for years. If what Officer Shannon said was true, that this mass ritual was tied up somehow with David Mathenge's arrest, then today's
irua
implied something far more significant than a simple tribal get-together.

     It was meant to be a slap in the white man's face.

     "Here they come," said one of the Methodists.

     It was the only time during the whole ritual when others might look upon the initiates. As the girls, naked except for a single necklace each, followed
the path from the river to the homestead, they sang ancestral songs of a mournful nature, in slow and gentle voices. The girls walked in pairs, with their elbows bent and pressed to their ribs, hands raised and curled into fists with thumbs inserted between first and second fingers, to indicate a readiness to withstand the coming pain.

     Grace was shocked into immobility. Nor did the priests or missionaries react because they had not been prepared for the sight that now passed before their eyes.

     The girls were grave and stately, singing in perfect beautiful harmony, their heads newly shaved, their nude bodies gleaming with river water. They didn't look to either side of the path or behind themselves, for that would have been bad luck; they didn't acknowledge the Kikuyu men, who now stood soberly at a respectful distance, or the Europeans, who stared speechless. The initiates walked as if in a trance; they mesmerized themselves with their melodious chant; their slender bodies swayed as they walked.

     Their ages, Grace guessed, ranged from seventeen down to eight or nine. Such a broad span would not have been known in former times, but since there had been no
irua
in recent years, the older ones joined the younger. And she knew most of them. There was Wanjiru, the articulate fighter who had orchestrated David Mathenge's escape from jail; there were the nurse Rebecca's three daughters; there was Njeri, David's half sister and Rose's companion.

     Grace could neither move nor speak.

     When had they organized this? How had they managed to keep it a secret? There were a hundred girls, at least, in the monstrous procession! Why hadn't a single white person gotten word of it?

     Grace suddenly felt cold. For the first time in her eighteen years in East Africa she felt a strange, dark fear. There was something awesome about these innocent naked girls, something raw and primeval. Grace had the sensation of looking back into time. It was as if she were watching girls who had lived a hundred years ago, on their way to the ancient test of strength and courage and endurance.

     And it frightened her.

     When the girls were out of sight, the Kikuyu men closed in behind them and warily watched the Europeans.

     "Why don't you all go home?" Assistant Superintendent Shannon said quietly to the missionaries. "There's nothing you can do here."

     Recovering from his shock, Father Vittorio turned on the District Officer. "Are you going to stand there, knowing what those poor girls are about to go through?"

     Shannon glanced at the Africans, then presented a smile to the priest. "Take care now, Father. They're watching us. And they're the male relatives of the girls. If you make a wrong move now, I shall be powerless to save you from them."

     The priest looked at the Africans. He knew many of them. One was the groundskeeper of his church; another took care of his priestly vestments. These were men who came regularly to mass, who knelt at the altar rail to take holy communion, who brought their children for baptism and Christian names, but who were now, the priest saw, strangers.

     Father Vittorio blinked. He experienced a sudden revelation that for some reason struck fear in him: that savage Africa still beat in these Catholic hearts.

     While the Europeans continued to argue over what to do, while keeping an eye on the Africans who blocked the path to the homestead, Grace discreetly left the group and went into the bush. No white person, as far as she knew, had ever witnessed an actual
irua.
She herself had seen only the aftermath: Mario's dead sister and Gachiku trying to give birth.

     She followed the direction of the path and eventually saw, through the trees, the sacred arch decorated with flowers. A few Kikuyu men stood guard. Grace continued through the forest, circling the clearing that was the homestead. Finally she came upon a boulder surrounded by Cape chestnut trees. Climbing up, she saw that it gave her an unobstructed view of the homestead below while she herself remained concealed.

     She watched with held breath.

     Assistant Superintendent Shannon was right. It was one thing to interfere with childbirth, as she had done with Gachiku, but another to intrude upon a most sacred and solemn ritual. In this Grace knew she was powerless to stop them, as was the officer with his askaris. And the Kikuyu also knew this. The
irua
about to be performed was a blatant nose thumbing to the
white authorities. Since the debacle of Pageant Week, when a thousands-strong mass of Africans had been humbled in the eyes of their white masters, they had sought, and found, a way of lashing back.

     This was active rebellion, and everyone knew it.

     The girls filed into the compound, where mothers were waiting. Grace knew a little of the rules of the ritual. Traditionally a girl had a sponsor, another woman of the tribe who became a kind of second mother. But these girls, she saw, went to their real mothers. Perhaps not enough women had been available. After all, Grace realized, large though this group was, it did not represent the entire Kikuyu population in the province. The majority was staying safely, and wisely, away.

     The girls went to their mothers, who were waiting on the cowhides, and sat down. They were taken in groups of ten, while the rest formed a protective circle around them. From her vantage point Grace could see over the heads of the women. Each girl sat down with her legs open, while her mother sat behind her and interlocked her own legs with those of her daughter, to keep them open and steady. The girl reclined in the arms of her mother, her head back so that she looked up at the sky. When the girls were thus positioned, an elderly woman passed among them, sprinkling a liquid—ice water, Grace suspected—on each girl's genitals. This was supposed to numb the area further and retard bleeding, but Grace knew it would have little effect.

     Held thus by her mother, each girl was expected to keep her eyes skyward and was not to move, to cry out, or even to blink while the operation was being performed. To flinch in any way was to bring disgrace upon herself and her family.

     Grace was not surprised to see Wachera, painted in black and white, appear from inside the hut.

     Wanjiru was the first candidate. She lay back in her mother's arms and, as far as Grace could see, not only showed no signs of fear but looked as if she were proud, as if she welcomed this terrible test. And when Wachera's razor did its work, Wanjiru remained serene.

     Grace closed her eyes.

     When she looked again, Wanjiru was being carried, bandaged with leaves, to the healing hut.

     Grace watched as the next girls were attended to. The littlest ones cried. A few screamed. Not many were like the radical Wanjiru.

     Grace felt time stand still. The women sang in their haunting, primitive harmony, rejoicing upon each mutilation, as their mothers had done for them, and their grandmothers, and so on back into history in an unchanging, unbroken ancestral legacy. With the cutting of each girl, Grace felt the grip of European civilization slip away. She listened to women with Christian names singing songs of praise to Ngai, the god of Mount Kenya. And she felt herself go numb.

     But when the next group of girls came to the cowhides and she saw a terrified Njeri lie back between Gachiku's legs, Grace came suddenly alive.

     Wachera performed her quick, skillful surgery upon four girls before she reached Njeri, and when Grace saw the fear in the seventeen-year-old's eyes, saw how she struggled against her mother's hold, and when she remembered the day she had brought the baby out of Gachiku's abdomen, Grace cried, "Stop!" and climbed down the boulder.

     The singing ceased. The women turned.

     It was the worse sacrilege—a non-Kikuyu and, from what they understood of white ways, uncircumcised, coming into their presence. Grace's intrusion brought
thahu
upon the sacred
irua.
But the women were too shocked to react. They drew back as she made her way to the inner circle.

     "Wait," Grace said breathlessly as she drew up behind the kneeling medicine woman. "Please stop!"

     Wachera rested back on her heels, razor in hand, paused a moment, then rose to her feet and faced Grace. She did not appear surprised to find the memsaab in her midst; in fact, Grace realized, Wachera seemed to welcome the interruption. As
though this were a chance at last for us to fight
, Grace thought.

     "Please do not do this, Wachera," Grace said in Kikuyu. "Please let the girl go. Look how frightened she is."

     "She will not disgrace her family."

     Grace appealed to the girl's mother. "Gachiku, isn't this your favorite child? Isn't this the daughter of your beloved Mathenge? How can you do this to her?"

     "I do it because I love her," Gachiku said in a tight voice, not meeting Grace's eyes. "And to honor my dead husband."

     "Would you have your daughter suffer in childbirth as you did?" Gachiku didn't reply.

     "Give the girl to me," Grace said to Wachera. "She belongs to me! I gave her life when everyone else would have let her die. Your grandmother, the elder Wachera, would have let her perish. And Chief Mathenge, too. I saved Njeri! But not for this!"

     "She belongs to Kikuyu. She will be made a true daughter of Mumbi."

     "Please, Wachera! I'm begging you!"

     "Begging? As my grandmother once begged the bwana your brother not to cut down the sacred fig tree?"

     "I am sorry for that, Wachera, truly I am. But I am not responsible for my brother's actions."

     "Where is my husband?" cried Wachera. "Where is my son, David? Where are my unborn children? If your brother had not come to Kikuyuland, I would have all my family at my side today. Instead, I am alone. Go away. You do not belong in Kikuyuland. Go back to where your ancestors dwell."

     Before Grace could respond, Wachera dropped to her knees and worked her hasty skill upon Njeri.

     The girl's scream tore the air, sending birds into flight from the surrounding trees.

     Wachera poured the herb milk on Njeri and then applied the healing leaves. She said, "Now this girl is a true daughter of Mumbi."

     Grace looked down. She began to tremble as Njeri's weeping filled her eyes. For as long as she lived, Grace knew, she would never forget the girl's scream.

     As Gachiku helped her daughter to the healing hut, Grace turned to the next woman on the cowhide. "Rebecca," she said in an even voice, "I have taught you surgery. I have taught you about cleanliness and infection. You know that what you are doing here today is harmful. You know that you place your daughters at great risk. Let them go. Because if you don't, then you will never work at my side again."

     The Kikuyu woman with the small gold cross around her neck gazed impassively at the white woman.

     "And I say to all of you," Grace called out, looking at each woman in turn, "if you do not stop this evil practice now, you are never welcome in my mission again. If you are ill, do not come to my clinic. You will not be welcome there."

     They stared back at her.

     "They will not listen to you," Wachera said, "because I have told them that your clinic will not be there much longer. The day when the white man leaves Kikuyuland is near at hand. We are returning to the old ways, and you will be forgotten."

     Grace regarded the face hidden behind black and white paint, the face of a woman whom she had thought she knew but who she realized now was a stranger. And Grace sensed a premonition, cold and gray, pass over her like a cloud briefly obscuring the sun. She thought of the few thousand whites ruling over millions of Africans, she heard Officer Shannon say, "They're getting harder and harder to control," she looked down at the bloodstained cowhides, and suddenly she knew beyond a doubt that some terrible, irrevocable threshold had been crossed here today.

     With great dignity, her bearing a cover for the anger in her heart, the trouble in her soul, Grace turned her back on the medicine woman and walked from the compound. When she reached the sacred arch of the ancestors, she heard behind her the resumed soft, harmonious chant of the African women.

M
ONA REACHED OVER AND TOOK HER AUNT'S HAND NOT
because she was afraid of the airplane flight, but because Grace looked as pale as death.