Green City in the Sun (92 page)

     She looked at Kenyatta down on the dais. To everyone's immense surprise, his European wife, whom he had married back in England years ago, had flown out to join him and his two Kenyan wives as a gesture of interracial goodwill. Kenyatta made impressive speeches about restraint and tolerance. But would he be able to control his volatile population of six million if a second revolution broke out?

     What, Grace wondered anxiously, was the future going to be like, starting tomorrow?

     As the national anthem came to a close and the crowds started cheering again, eight-year-old Deborah clapped her hands and laughed. This was better than Christmas! She stood shivering in the cold night between Aunt Grace and Uncle Geoffrey, and saw, across the arena, in another specially reserved box, Christopher Mathenge standing with his sister and mother and grandmother.

     Deborah caught his eye. She smiled at him.

     And he smiled back.

A
RE YOU EXCITED ABOUT GOING TO
C
ALIFORNIA?"
S
ARAH
asked as she stirred the pot of melted wax.

     Deborah, sitting at the base of a Cape chestnut with her knees drawn up and her back against its trunk, was going through a fashion magazine—the
Mademoiselle
college issue, which showed the latest in campus wear. She paused at a page that showed models dressed in long skirts and platform shoes; then she looked up at her friend. "It scares me, in a way, Sarah. California is so foreign, so far away!"

     Sarah bent to examine the consistency of her wax. She sniffed it, then added a small chunk of beeswax to the pot. As it melted, she said, "I can't believe you took so long to make up your mind! If that scholarship had been offered to me, I would have snapped it up like that!"

     Looking back down at the models smiling in young American confidence, Deborah felt her fears rise again. How could she possibly fit in with these sophisticated girls?

     It had been a big decision to make, accepting the Uhuru scholarship. It
meant being away from Kenya for three years—away from all her friends, away from Aunt Grace and their home at the mission, and, most of all, away from Sarah, who was like a sister to her. Moreover, Christopher was returning today after four years of studying in England. Deborah would have just enough time to say hello to him and then would have to say good-bye again.

     Deborah envied Sarah. She was so self-assured, so confident, just like the models in the magazine. Sarah had always been brave; it was because of having been born in a detention camp, Sarah always said. She wasn't afraid of anything, and she was always willing to take on any challenge. Her own school leaving, for example, had been typical of Sarah, a brave move that had so angered her mother, Wanjiru, that the two were not speaking. It had shocked Deborah, too, that Sarah should drop out of college after just one year. But her friend had explained with characteristic self-certainty, "Egerton has nothing more to offer me. I haven't the time to sit through its useless courses. I know what I want. Egerton can't give it to me, so by God, I'm going after it on my own.

     Sarah had been referring to her ambition to be a fashion designer. Ever since she was a little girl, she had known that was what she was going to do. In secondary school Sarah had taken every art and design and sewing class offered. Then she had gone on to Egerton College at Njoro, where, under its home economics diploma program, one of the very few higher education courses open to Kenya women, she had studied the identification and care of fabrics, sewing by hand and by machine, pattern drafting, dressmaking, alterations, and finishing. When she saw that the second year of the course concentrated on nutrition and child rearing, she had left the school and come home to pursue her dream along another path.

     She worked now for an Asian woman named Mrs. Dar in Nyeri, as an assistant seamstress. The pay was very low, the hours long, and the working conditions hard, but Mrs. Dar made exquisite dresses for the wives of wealthy businessmen in the district, and Sarah was learning everything she could from her. But that wasn't enough. Even though her hope was someday to own her own sewing machines, her own business with assistants of her own, Sarah dreamed of something greater: of designing a whole new look.

     That was why she was down by the river with Deborah, stirring a pot
of hot wax over a fire. Sarah had recently discovered batik, the art of dyeing cloth by using wax, and she had been experimenting with the process for days.

     "I shall feel so out of place in California," Deborah said, laying aside the fashion magazine. "I shan't know anything. And I'm sure they all will be smarter than I."

     Sarah straightened and put her hands on her hips. "What rot, Deb! How do you suppose you earned that scholarship? By being stupid? Out of fifteen hundred applicants, you won! And didn't Professor Muriuki say that California's gain was going to be Nairobi University's loss?"

     Professor Muriuki, Deborah told herself, was just being kind. She had taken four courses with him in the past year at the University of Nairobi, and he liked her.

     He had, however, gone on to concede that "I cannot deny that the level of education at the California university is superior to ours. You're wise to go there, Miss Treverton. When you come back to Kenya and attend medical school here, you will be head and shoulders above your fellow students."

     The eighteen-year-old girls were enjoying the warm August sun and the peace of the river. Through the trees they heard the cries of children playing rugby on the polo field which Deborah's mother had turned over to Grace Mission when she left Kenya ten years ago. Nearby, a hundred feet from where the two girls sat by the river, a familiar cluster of huts stood in a bucolic setting amid flourishing maize and bean plots, a healthy herd of goats, and a full granary. That was where Sarah lived, with her aged grandmother, Mama Wachera, but in her own hut, which she had made comfortable with a carpet and proper chairs. There was a hut, too, for Wanjiru, where she stayed when she drove up from Nairobi to visit. The fourth hut was Christopher's. It had once been his father's
thingira,
bachelor hut; Christopher was going to stay in it whenever he was on holiday from medical school.

     Thinking of Christopher, Deborah looked at her watch. His flight from London was scheduled to arrive that morning, and he was to be met by his mother and come up with her in her car.

     The hour seemed late to Deborah. Where were they?

     She hadn't slept the night before, had only barely slept all week, anticipating
Christopher's return. What was it going to be like after these past four years? Even now her heart raced to think of his being home again, to imagine the long talks they would have.
Will he have changed much?
she wondered.

     Sarah left her wax pot and went to inspect the squares of cloth spread out on large boulders. Each was in a stage of the dyeing process; each had been prepared differently. She examined them closely. "I think I've finally conquered the problem of crackling," she said, holding up a piece. "What do you think, Deb?"

     Deborah studied the large square of muslin which Sarah held up. The design was of a woman and child—very basic and primitive—and the colors were earth tones. She liked the way the sunlight shone through it, revealing black veins of dye where the wax had broken. "It's beautiful."

     Sarah laid it down and stepped back. "I'm not so sure."

     "You've mastered the wax. The colors hardly run at all."

     Sarah pursed her lips as she gazed at her handiwork.

     She had taught herself batik through a lengthy process of trial and error, experimenting on leftover scraps, which she bought from Mrs. Dar with almost half her wages. The wax and dye, purchased at an Asian
duka
in Nyeri, ate up the rest of her pay so that Sarah was constantly without money. But it was worth it. She had mastered batik, and her fabrics were beautiful.

     Still, there was something missing.

     "I don't know, Deb," Sarah said as she sat on the grass next to her friend. She dug her bare feet into the red clay and watched the fish in the clear water. "It's not enough somehow."

     Deborah, who was unartistic and therefore was impressed with her friend's achievement, said, "You'll be able to make lovely dresses with that cloth, Sarah. I know that if I had the money, I would buy one!"

     Sarah smiled. Despite the fact that Deborah's last name was Treverton and that she owned the huge house up on the hill smack in the middle of Mr. Singh's coffee farm, and despite the fact that her aunt owned Grace Mission, Deborah had no money. That was because the house was practically worthless; it cost too much to live in and keep up, and no one wanted to buy it, surrounded as it was by Mr. Singh's coffee trees. And everyone knew
that the mission had been run at a loss almost since its founding, because the school and hospital were free to those who couldn't afford to pay, and that any money Dr. Treverton had ever brought in she had put right back into the mission, keeping none for herself. In fact, it was rumored that if the Catholic nuns hadn't stepped in to help, some years back, the mission would have gone bankrupt. So Deborah Treverton was as penniless as Sarah Mathenge; it was one of the many things they had in common.

     "Can you believe it!" Deborah said as she handed the magazine to her friend. "They're still wearing miniskirts in America!"

     Sarah gazed at the models in envy. The wearing of a miniskirt was banned in Kenya. It was "improper and unladylike," the government said, "and provoked men to lust."

     "I shall never fit in," Deborah said. "Not dressed like this!" She wore a simple cotton dress and sandals. Fine for rural Kenya, she thought, but entirely out of place on a sophisticated California college campus.

     "You can wear anything you want in America these days," Sarah assured her. "Look here—mididresses, granny dresses, peasant dresses, velour pantsuits, blue jeans with rainbow patches. Even hot pants! The important thing to remember is this." She gave Deborah a significant look. "You'll be a top scholar and will come home with honors. Just as Professor Muriuki said."

     Deborah prayed that it would be so. Her most urgent dream was to be the best possible doctor. To be just like Aunt Grace and follow in her footsteps.

     "If only I had money!" Sarah said as she tossed a pebble into the water. "I
know
I could do better than Mrs. Dar! She's so conservative. She has no imagination. And she won't let me voice my opinions! Dr. Chandra's wife came in last week, and Mrs. Dar put her in the most unflattering
green.
I saw right away that she needed something in soft brown with maybe gold trim. And the way skirts hang on her! Deb, if I had the money, I could buy a sewing machine and go into business for myself. I could work right here, out of my own house. And after I had a few regular paying customers, I could purchase unbleached muslin in bulk and dye various pieces of it to suit particular clients."

     "Those are lovely," Deborah said, nodding toward the batiks drying on the boulders.

     Sarah seized a length that had been dyed in shades of red and orange and said, "Let me see how it looks on you."

     Deborah laughed and said,
"Kangas
don't suit me, Sarah." But she stood and let her friend drape the stiff material around her.

     Although Deborah was a
mzunga,
she was hardly much lighter than Sarah because she had spent her entire life in the fierce equatorial sun. While most whites in Kenya sought carefully to protect themselves from the strong rays on the equator, Deborah loved the feel of sunlight on her bare arms and face. That was not to say, however, that the two were similar in appearance. Although Deborah had short, curly black hair and dark eyes, she was still very European, whereas Sarah was strikingly African. She wore her hair in the new cornrow style, the many tight braids culminating in a fountain of hair on top of her head. The effect was to lengthen her already long neck and to crown the grace of her supple arms and slender body. Sarah Mathenge was exceptionally beautiful, Deborah thought, envying her friend's natural elegance and style.

     "That looks jolly good on you, Deb," Sarah said, standing back and studying her work.

     Deborah turned slowly in the sunlight, trying to catch her reflection in the river. Sarah had fixed the cloth around her in
kanga
fashion—crisscrossed over her breast and tied behind her neck.

     Sarah's frown returned.

     "What's the matter?" asked Deborah. "Don't you like it?"

     "It's not what I want to achieve, Deb. It looks just so bloody ordinary." Sarah's expression grew thoughtful. "Do you remember a few years back, the Liverpool look? And then the Carnaby Street look? There's no Kenya look. No style that is uniquely East African."

     "What about the
kanga?
I'd say that was uniquely East African."