Green City in the Sun (90 page)

     How strange it had seemed to Grace, back in 1957, to vote alongside Africans for the first time. And what a shock it had been to encounter old Mama Wachera at the voting place just this past June. They had looked at each other, and Grace had gone cold to the core. The chance encounter with the medicine woman had brought back the painful memory of the day after
James's death. Mama Wachera had come to Grace's house to claim her son's body, and without a word she had thrown a bundle at Grace's feet. Numb from the terrible tragedy of the night before—James dying in her arms, Mona's baby dead, Mario, her houseboy, revealing himself as the oath giver—Grace had picked up that bundle and found it contained all of Mona's letters to David.

     Grace possessed them still. Not knowing what to do with them, she had put them away against the day she would pass them along to Mona. That had been nine years ago. At first Mona had been too grief-stricken, Grace thought, to be given the letters. Later she had decided they would only open Mona's wounds.
Perhaps
, Grace thought now,
I should simply destroy them and lay that dark chapter to rest.

     She heard footsteps crunching over the dirt and then a voice calling softly, "Dr. T?"

     It was Tim. He had always called her Dr. T. When he stepped into the light which spilled from her tent, he apologized for disturbing her and asked if he could speak with her.

     "I guess what I've really come for is to say good-bye, Dr. T," he said as he sat down. "We're leaving next week."

     "Yes," she said softly. "I know."

     "Now that everything's wrapped up, no use in hanging around for Freedom Day. I don't think I care to see the Union Jack come down once and for all."

     "Perhaps it won't be so bad."

     Tim thought for a moment, twisting his hat in his hands. Then he said, "We do wish you would come with us, Dr. T. Alice's sheep farm is doing smashingly, and Tasmania is a beautiful place. Clean and quiet, if you know what I mean."

     Grace smiled and shook her head. "Kenya is my home. I belong here. And here I shall stay."

     "I don't expect I'll ever be coming back. I was born here, you know, but I feel like an outsider. 'Kenya for Kenyans' is what they're saying. Then what am I if not a Kenyan? I hope you'll be all right, Dr. T."

     "I shall be fine, Tim. Besides, I won't be alone. I shall have Deborah."

     Tim avoided meeting Grace's eyes. It was an uncomfortable subject for him—Deborah. Perhaps if, eight years ago, Mona had agreed to marry him...

     But no. Tim wasn't the marrying kind. He needed his freedom, needed his special friendships, which did not include women. As for the child, well, Mona felt the same way: that Deborah was a mistake and an embarrassing reminder of a night they both preferred to forget.

     "Before I go, Dr. T," he said quietly, staring down at the canvas floor, "there's something I want to tell you. I don't know, I just don't feel I can go to Australia without getting this off my chest. It's about the night the earl was killed."

     Grace waited.

     He finally looked up. "I was the bloke on the bicycle."

     She stared at him.

     "I didn't kill the earl, though! I don't mean to say that. What happened is, I couldn't sleep that night, so I went downstairs for a drink. I saw the earl out on the drive, getting into his car. I wondered what he was up to. When he drove off, I went outside and saw the bicycle. I decided to follow him. I saw the car up ahead turn onto the Kiganjo Road. He was going a lot faster than I could pedal, so it was some time before I caught up with him. I saw his car pulled over to the side, the motor still running. When I got close, I thought the earl had fallen asleep. He had had so much to drink, you know?"

     "Yes, I know."

     "I pulled up alongside and peered in. Then I thought maybe he was ill or something. So I got off the bike and slipped in the mud. That's why there was mud on the passenger seat. As soon as I saw the gun in his hand and the bullet wound in his head, I knew what had happened. Whoever did it must have gotten away just before I arrived. I didn't see anybody or hear anything. And then, because I was so scared, I threw the bicycle into the bush when a tire blew, and I ran all the way back to Bellatu."

     "Why didn't you tell this to the police?"

     "What good would it have done? I couldn't have told them who did it. And they'd have arrested me on suspicion of the earl's murder. Everyone knew we hated each other."

     He looked at Grace and said softly, "I guess we'll never know who did it, will we?"

     "No, I don't suppose we ever will. But I don't think it matters anymore. Almost everyone who was a part of it is dead. It's best forgotten."

     "I'll say good night then, Dr. T. Geoffrey is taking us on one of his game runs in the morning!"

     Grace held out her hand, and he took it. "Take care, Tim," she said. "And good luck."

     IT WAS GEOFFREY'S experience that the most resisting of women eventually succumbed to the magic and enchantment of the African bush. He had countless clients who could vouch for as much. So when he walked through the dark to Mona's tent, recalling how animated she had become at dinner and the way her cheeks had burned, he had high hopes. That, and a chilled bottle of champagne.

     Mona didn't seem at all surprised to see him at the doorway of her tent, sending his hopes even higher. But when she said, "I'm glad you came, Geoff. I have something to tell you," the tone in her voice caught him off guard.

     "What is it?" he said as he opened the champagne. When he offered Mona a glass, she refused it.

     "I've sold the farm, Geoffrey."

     He looked at her. Then he sat down, stunned. "You can't mean it! The whole thing?"

     "All five thousand acres."

     "Good God, I thought you would never sell! What on earth changed your mind?"

     She turned away. She had put off telling him the news until now because she knew it would result in a row. But there was almost no time left; he had to be told.

     Nonetheless, she couldn't tell him the truth. That she had decided to sell the coffee estate because of a little boy.

     After the day she had found Deborah and Christopher Mathenge in
her parents' bedroom, Mona had wept as she had never wept before. She had taken to her bed and finally released all the tears and pain that she had sealed inside herself since the night of David's death. And then, once again in control, all tears having been shed, she faced the cold reality that she could not possibly continue to live at Bellatu and watch that boy grow up into a second David.

     And so she had known that she must get away from Kenya forever, turn her back on the country of her birth, the only country she had ever known, and find a new place somewhere.

     "You know that the farm has barely been making it, Geoff. After the crop failure in 1953, and the loss of most of my field help during Mau Mau, and then the wet year of 1956, when the rains lasted too long and the berries rotted on the trees—well, I just haven't been able to recover. So I sold to an Asian named Singh. He'll do something profitable with it, I'm sure."

     "I can't believe it! Asians living in Bellatu!"

     "I didn't sell him the house. I've kept that. After all, the house is Deborah's inheritance."

     "That was a wise move. And I'll tell you something else, Mona. I'm glad you sold the farm. Now you can come and work for me. I'll be opening a posh office in Nairobi, and I want someone capable to run it for me."

     "Oh, Geoffrey!" she said, turning around to face him. "What madness! Tourists! In Kenya! You've been out in the sun too long! Do you really think people will want to come here for holidays? Can't you see where Kenya is heading? Back to the jungle and the mud huts! The minute independence is declared, this country is going to disintegrate into anarchy, and your white skin won't be worth sixpence!"

     He stared at her, at first taken aback by her outburst and then finally realizing what she was saying. "What do you mean," he said slowly, "that
my
white skin won't be worth sixpence? Where will
you
be?"

     She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her hands. "I'm going to Australia with Tim."

     
"What?"
Geoffrey shot to his feet. "You can't be serious!"

     "I am serious, Geoff. Alice has asked me to come and live with her on
her farm. Tim decided for himself months ago. We don't want to live in Kenya anymore."

     "I don't believe it!" he shouted. "You're running off with that—that faggot!"

     "Geoffrey, that's not fair!"

     "Is it because of Deborah? After all, everyone knows she's his child."

     "No, it's not because of Deborah. We're not going to get married or anything like that. The three of us will simply live and work together on the sheep farm. I'm done with men and husbands and all that grief. We'll just be a family, living in peace. It's what Tim and I want. I know you find this hard to believe, Geoffrey, but Deborah means nothing to me. In fact, I'm not taking her with me. I've arranged for her to live with Aunt Grace."

     Geoffrey was shocked into silence. All of a sudden he was looking at a woman he didn't know, a woman he didn't care to know. Finally he said quietly, "I think that's monstrous."

     "Think what you want, Geoff—"

     "Damn it, Mona. How can you abandon her like that? Your own child! What kind of mother
are
you?"

     "Don't you lecture me on duties and responsibilities, Geoffrey Donald. Stop and think for a minute what sort of
husband
you are. Why, the whole colony knows about your escapades with your female clients and with the wives of your clients! You used to be an honorable man, Geoffrey. What happened?"

     "I don't know," he said softly. "I don't know what's happened to any of us. We've all changed."

     He went to the tent door, the champagne bottle in his hand, and paused to look at Mona. They had grown up together; he had given her her first kiss. Her letters, in that lonely outpost in Palestine, had sustained him. Where
had
they gone wrong? What erroneous turning in their mutual road had brought them to this? "Good night," he said unhappily, and left.

     Mona watched him go. She stood at the mosquito net and saw his silhouette blend in with the dark night until only his footsteps remained, and then those, too, faded.

     She clutched the tent post as she listened to the roaring of lions in the
bush nearby. They sounded so lonely, so sad, as if trying to find one another. Mona looked out at Kenya, her home, and thought of the little train, now a museum oddity, that had once chuffed through just such a night as this and the frightened countess giving birth in one of its carriages.

     Finally Mona closed her eyes and whispered,
"Kwa heri,"
to Kenya. "Good-bye."

M
AMA
W
ACHERA EYED THE BEAST WARILY.

     Although it purred harmlessly now, it had roared up in a cloud of dirt and noise. It was enormous and menacing, and she didn't trust it.

     "Come along, Mama," Dr. Mwai said as he held the car door open for her. "You will have the honor of riding in the front seat."

     Christopher and Sarah were already sitting in the back, on either side of their mother.

     Mama Wachera looked at the smiling face of this African dressed in a European business suit and wearing a gold watch and gold rings. She knew she must regard him with respect. He was a healer like herself, what was called a
medical
doctor, but he bore no resemblance to the healers of old. Where was his magic gourd, his Bag of Questions, his sacred staff adorned with goats' ears? Why was he not wearing the ceremonial headdress; where was the ritual paint on his face and arms; did he know the sacred songs and dances? The medicine woman couldn't help it, she felt a mild contempt for this man.

     "Don't be afraid, Mama!" Wanjiru called merrily from inside the car. "It won't hurt you."