Green City in the Sun (73 page)

     "I wonder..." Mona said. She was staring out the large living room window, which admitted a glorious day that shed equatorial sunlight on Bellatu's somber, elegant old furniture. Bright pink and orange bougainvillaea framed the deep veranda, rows of green coffee trees undulated over a gently hilly landscape, and in the distance, purple and snowcapped, Mount Kenya stood in cloudless majesty. "I wonder, Geoffrey, if the governor's move isn't, in fact, an error. By bringing in such military force, he is as much as admitting to the world, and to Mau Mau, that the white settler government of Kenya is incapable of defending the colony alone."

     "Good God, Mona, you talk as if you wanted the wogs to run the country!"

     "I don't think their desire for self-rule is unreasonable."

     "Well, I'll agree with you in part. I've been screaming for self-rule for years, you know that. There's no bloody sense in our having to answer to Whitehall any longer. But I mean
white
self-rule."

     "Geoffrey, there are forty thousand of us in this country and
six million
Africans! It must be evident to you and everyone by now that the Rhodesian
apartheid model will never work here in Kenya. We don't have that right."

     "You're wrong, Mona. We do have the right. Don't forget what miracles our tiny minority has performed in East Africa. The British taxpayer, Mona, the hardest hit after the war, has poured great sums of money into this colony, money which has helped the Africans! When one considers everything we've done for them, actually brought them out of the Stone Age, and how we've taken care of them all these years, it's appalling that the current situation has been allowed to develop. If you ask me, Mona, we were fools not to accept Montgomery's plan when we had the chance."

     "What plan was that?"

     "Back in 'forty-eight Field Marshal Montgomery introduced a plan to establish military bases here in Kenya because he had foreseen exactly the dissension we have today. Because we didn't listen to him, the Africans have played right into Communist hands, and that is exactly what we are facing now. The whole of Mau Mau, I tell you, is based on Communist lines."

     "Oh, Geoffrey," Mona said impatiently, "I still say it is their country as much as it is ours, and we shouldn't discount the needs and feelings of six million people."

     Geoffrey gave Mona a wry smile. "Do you really think they are capable of self-rule?" He laughed. "I can hear the wogs now! 'Give us the job and we'll finish the tools!'"

     "You're being unfair."

     "And I say they're being bloody ungrateful! But what can you expect? The Kikuyu language doesn't even have a word for 'thank you.' We had to teach it to them."

     Geoffrey stood abruptly. He hated these arguments with Mona. She infuriated him. Everything about her annoyed him: her political views; the way she lived—especially the way she lived.

     Mona was a good-looking woman, he thought, could be quite stunning, in fact, if she didn't insist on parading about like an ordinary farm woman. She had inherited a rather fetching combination, in his opinion, of her mother's beauty and her father's dark good looks, and she should be capitalizing on it with better clothes and a trip now and then to the hairdresser. But Mona insisted on drawing her long black hair into a plain ponytail and
wearing men's shirts. She hadn't an ounce of style, he thought, spending her days in the coffee fields, working alongside her Africans. Mona seemed to have inherited none of her parents' gentility. The days of champagne and polo parties were, sadly, long gone; they seemed to have died with Valentine. The upstairs guest rooms, Geoffrey knew, had been closed up long ago. Limousines no longer pulled up the drive; gay celebrations had ceased to fill these somber rooms. The only visitors Mona entertained were men from the Coffee Board, growers like herself, with whom she smoked cigarettes and drank brandy and discussed world market prices. What Mona needed was a man to remind her of the woman she was. And Geoffrey decided he was that man.

     A pang of conscience made him look at his wife, who sat in a cotton maternity smock, fat and complacent, her sole interest in life their children. Ilse had let herself go. After four babies and now pregnant again with the fifth, she had lost all sexual desirability. She was a good mother, Geoffrey admitted. But as a bed partner she had lost her appeal long ago. What had he been thinking to marry her because she had been persecuted and he had felt sorry for her? Instead, he should have come home to Mona!

     It was getting more and more difficult for him to curb his desire for Mona. It amazed him that she could lead such a celibate life. It was unnatural. Surely she, too, longed for intimacy with a man. Yet, amazingly, there were no men in her life other than strictly business contacts. Geoffrey was certain that there must be a yearning in her somewhere, that at night, alone in her bed, she must be reminded of her sterile life. Mona must be ripe, Geoffrey decided, for the right man to come along. One of these days, Geoffrey promised himself, or one of these nights he was going to give in to his lust and come to Bellatu and find her alone. And she would be just as ready for him as he was for her.

     "Anyway," he said as he strode to the window, his body, still lean at forty, silhouetted against the October sunshine. "I mean to show the Mau Mau gangsters that I am not intimidated by them. With me it will be business as usual, despite what the bad press has done for it. Once this Mau Mau nonsense has died down, and it will, I promise you that, then I shall have my customers again."

     Geoffrey was referring to his embryonic tour agency, which he had started after being released from the army. His prophecy that the war would spark a new age in tourism had come true. All over the world soldiers returning home had regaled their families with stories of the exotic places they had seen: Paris; Rome; Egypt; Hawaii; the South Pacific. These discoveries, along with the recent introduction of commercial jet travel, which drastically reduced traveling time, had triggered a sudden worldwide fad for sight-seeing. The Donald Tour Agency, which operated out of Geoffrey Donald's living room at Kilima Simba, was still in its early, struggling stage, Kenya not yet implanted in the minds of would-be holiday travelers. So far Geoffrey only took out hunting safaris, but his intention was to establish something altogether new:
photographic
safaris.

     "I'm working on a new advertising campaign," he said as he returned to his tea and changed the subject with, in Mona's opinion, maddening agility. "I'm having a brochure drafted, with photos of lions and giraffes and natives and a reassurance that the Manchester laborer can enjoy two weeks of African adventure in guaranteed safety and comfort. Now that we've got these wildlife preserves, thanks to the diligent work of Aunt Grace, we might as well cash in on them."

     "But even with our wildlife," Mona said, "I don't see what else Kenya has to offer to the average holidaymaker. One can get tired of just taking snapshots of animals every day."

     One of Mona's problems, Geoffrey decided, was that she lacked imagination. "That's going to be part of my new program. The brochure will have pictures of the Nairobi hotels. I'll emphasize the luxury, the cuisine, the nightlife. Now that Nairobi has finally achieved city status, I mean to put it on the world map."

     Mona laughed. "All you need now is a jingle or a slogan. How about "Welcome to Nairobi, City in the Sun?"

     As she collected the empty teacups, she didn't see Geoffrey pull a small notebook out of the pocket of his khaki jacket and write something down.

     "Now, you're not to worry," Geoffrey said a few minutes later as he and Ilse prepared to say good-bye in the kitchen. His hand was on Mona's arm,
holding tightly. "I can guarantee that with Kenyatta cut off from his forest thugs, they'll come slinking out with their tails between their legs and this whole business will blow over."

     He stepped closer to her. Mona could see the sunburned creases around his eyes. "But if you do get frightened," he said quietly, "if you should wake up and think there's someone in the house, give me a ring on the telephone, and I'll be over here in an instant. Will you promise to do that?"

     Mona stepped away from him and handed a basket to Ilse. "Some honey for the children," she said.

     Outside Geoffrey paused on the steps and said, "I say, is your boy being questioned?"

     Mona looked out. Three askaris of the Kenya Police Reserve, in navy blue pullovers and tall red fezzes, were standing a short distance down the drive and appeared to be examining David's identity papers.

     Geoffrey turned to Mona. "I want you to be careful with that chap."

     Geoffrey's intense dislike of David Mathenge was no secret. His constant criticism of Mona's relationship with her African manager was a source of contention between them. "I trust David," she said.

     "Nevertheless, in these next few weeks, until the emergency has passed, I want you to be very careful around him."

     Mona parted with Geoffrey and his wife as they took the stairway that led down the ridge to the mission, while she continued along the drive to where David stood with the askaris.

     "What's the problem?" she asked.

     The three soldiers were polite and spoke in the clipped, melodious British accent of the educated African. "Pardon the intrusion, memsaab, but a farm was burned this morning, and we are questioning everyone.

     "Farm? Which one?"

     "Muhori Gatheru's farm. His house was destroyed, and all his cattle have been killed. It was the work of Mau Mau."

     "How do you know that?"

     "They left a message. It said, "The soil is ours.' "

     "What does that mean?"

     "It is the Mau Mau oath."

     "I can vouch for Mr. Mathenge. He was on the train from Nairobi this morning."

     "Pardon, memsaab, but the train was delayed at Karatina for some time this morning, and Muhori Gatheru's farm is at Karatina." "Still, I vouch for him. Good day."

     On their way to the house, where she and David would spend the afternoon going over the ledgers, bills, and correspondence and discussing David's visit to Uganda, where he had hoped to find a solution to their problems with mealybug infestation, Mona said, "I can't believe this horrible Mau Mau business is happening! You've heard of the state of emergency?"

     "Yes."

     Entering the kitchen, she said, "I'll have Solomon make us some sandwiches. Oh, where is that lazy old rascal?"

     "Don't worry for my sake, Mona. I'm not hungry. I ate on the train."

     "What delayed the train at Karatina? Do you know?"

     He paused, then said, "No."

     Mona had long ago converted her father's study to her own, packing away all his trophies, awards, and photographs. Chintz curtains now replaced the heavy drapes, and the stolid furniture, brought out from England thirty-three years ago and starting to show wear, had been covered in bright floral fabric.

     Mona took her place at the large oak desk while David drew up a chair and sat alongside.

     "How is the baby?" she asked as she pulled the ledgers out of their drawer.

     "My son is fine."

     "And Wanjiru?"

     "We argued again." David sighed. "I have been gone for two months, and my wife greets me with complaints."

     Mona knew about the arguments. Wanjiru wanted co-wives, to keep her company and to help with the work on the shamba; she wanted David to get himself elected to the leadership of the local KAU chapter; she wanted him to move out of the manager's cottage he had built six years ago and live with her and his mother down by the river.

     Wanjiru did not cease in repeating these demands, and David, Mona
knew, never budged an inch. And she was glad. On the KAU work Mona had no opinion, but it pleased her that he had not sought second and third wives and that he preferred to live alone in the small house down by the road. The reason this pleased her, Mona told herself, was that it left David free to concentrate on working the estate.

     But what Mona did not know and what David was not going to tell her was that today his argument with Wanjiru had been on a new issue. It had been about Mau Mau.

     "Christopher is a fine little boy," Mona said as she handed David the stack of bills that had piled up. "Only seven months old and already starting to crawl!"

     David looked at Mona and smiled. "You should have children," he said quietly.

     She looked away. "I'm past that! At thirty-three I can hardly think of starting a family!"

     "All women should have babies."

     "I have the farm. I'm satisfied." Mona hated it when David brought up the subject of her single status. His male presumption that a childless woman was an unhappy woman annoyed her. There was more to marriage and babies, she had once tried to explain to him, than a man simply buying a wife for a few goats. There was the matter of love.

     "I used to be afraid I was turning out to be like my mother," she had told him one rainy night back in April, when they had been warming themselves by the fire after a vigorous day on the estate, "because I had mistakenly thought she was incapable of love. And then I discovered that my mother was a woman who can love only one man in her life and then love him so completely and totally that she absolutely cannot survive without him."

     Mona had stopped herself then, suddenly realizing how close she was coming to things too private to confess. No one, not even her Aunt Grace, who was Mona's closest friend and confidante, knew of Mona's decision to wait out her life entirely if necessary, alone and childless, for the right man to come along. Settling for just anyone, merely to be married, seemed to Mona to bring only unhappiness and regret.

     David's shirtsleeves were rolled up. As he separated the bills into different
piles, his bare arms moved in and out of the sunlight that spilled across the desk. Mona found herself watching the movement of muscles beneath the dark brown skin.