Green City in the Sun (93 page)

     And that was true. Having originated on the coast of Kenya in the nineteenth century, the large rectangles of brightly patterned cotton cloth, known as
kangas,
were worn all over East Africa and seen everywhere on women in the fields and in the marketplace. The
kanga
formed a simple dress by being wrapped around under the armpits and tucked in; sometimes it was knotted over one shoulder or tied behind the neck. It was used as a
wraparound skirt, as a shawl, as a baby sling, and coiled around the head as a turban. The
kanga
was a cheap, simple, and easy-to-care-for form of clothing, and it suited the purpose of the African peasant woman. But Sarah wasn't going to design clothes for the
wananchi.

     "I'm thinking of the women who are working more and more in the cities, Deb. So many women are getting office jobs; they're learning to become secretaries and receptionists. Women are beginning to work in banks and businesses. They're even becoming lawyers now!
They
can't wear
kangas.
So what do they wear?" She pointed to
Mademoiselle.
"They buy cheap imitations of American and British styles!"

     "Well, then," Deborah said, "you could design ready-to-wear dresses out of
kanga
cloth. Those would certainly be a new style and definitely Kenyan."

     Sarah shook her head no, her large gold hoop earrings catching the sun. "I don't want to use
kanga
cloth. I loathe those horrible little sayings that are printed on them."

     For reasons no one knew, a tradition had begun years ago among the makers of
kanga
cloth; a Swahili aphorism was printed on each length. Many of them were so old and obscure of origin that they made no sense:
Vidole vitano, kipi ni bora?
"Of five fingers, which is the best?" And most were trite:
Akili ni mali
, "Wits are wealth."

     Sarah took the batik from Deborah and spread it out on the boulder. "I don't want to use cloth that's already made. I want to create a new fabric. Don't you see, Deb?" Sarah grew excited. "I want to create a
whole
new style. Not just fabric or not just a new dress but a whole new look. Something that says Kenya, a style that preserves and perpetuates African tradition! And something that women in Europe and America will want to wear."

     "What will it look like?"

     "I don't know yet." Sarah stared at the batiked fabric drying in the sun. She had experimented with color and design, but all she seemed able to come up with was an imitation of the
kanga.
"What is Kenyan?" she said. "Besides the
kanga
, I mean."

     Deborah shrugged. "I haven't a notion."

     "Do you know what I'm going to do, Deb? I'm going to take a look around this country of ours and see what the people are wearing."

     "What a marvelous idea!"

     "Think of all the tribes that haven't been Westernized, Deb. The Luo, the Kipsigis, the Turkana! They must still wear traditional dress. I'm going to study them. I'll draw them. They will be my inspiration, Deb. I'll find my Kenya look among the people themselves!"

     "It sounds beautiful, Sarah. And you're the one to do it!"

     "Oh, the things I could accomplish if only I had money!"

     "Sarah!" Deborah cried. "I have a wonderful idea! I can sell some of the things in Bellatu! Then you can have all the money you need!"

     But Sarah smiled and said, "No, Deb. You can't do that. You'll be moving into Bellatu after medical school. You don't want to live in a bare house!" She turned and walked down to the water's edge. "I'll come up with the money somehow. I know I will. And I shall get started in my own business."

     "Yes, you will," Deborah said. "And when I am a doctor, I shall come to you for all my clothes!"

     Sarah spun around and held out her arms. "And you'll send all your rich friends to me! I'll be so busy that I'll have fifty people working for me and everyone will be wearing my clothes!"

     "You'll be the Rudy Gernreich of East Africa!"

     Sarah laughed. "I'd rather be Mary Quant!"

     "Who's Mary Quant?" came a masculine voice.

     The two girls turned to see a young man striding down the grassy bank toward them. He wore dark slacks, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and sunglasses. "Christopher!" they cried.

     While Deborah held back, suddenly shy, Sarah ran to her brother and threw her arms around him. He picked her up and swung her in a circle. "You're back!" she cried.

     "And you've grown up!" He put her down, and they laughed breathlessly. Then Christopher turned to Deborah. "Hello," he said. "Hello, Christopher. Welcome home."

     They stood in the speckled sunlight that came through the Cape chestnuts, looking at each other, each thinking that the four years had seemed an eternity while they were passing but now seemed as if they had gone in a wink. Christopher marveled at how Deborah had changed, from a tomboyish
fourteen-year-old to this lovely young woman, while Deborah wondered where the awkward, gangly seventeen-year-old had gone to and who this handsome man was.

     "You're taller," he said quietly.

     "So are you."

     There was another moment of silence; then Sarah said, "Where's Mother?"

     "She's in your hut, complaining that there is no
ugali
for us and that your manners are atrocious."

     Sarah looked up at the sky in a suffering gesture, then said, "I'll go look for Grandmother. I think she's in the village. Oh, Christopher!" She hugged him again. "I'm so glad you're home! Tell me it's for good, that you're here to stay."

     He laughed. "I'm here to stay."

     Sarah ran off through the trees, leaving Deborah and Christopher alone.

     She couldn't believe he was actually standing before her, at long last—after four years of letters and Christmas phone calls, of missing her dear friend and childhood playmate, of growing up and finding her fondness turning into a woman's love, of experiencing strange, disturbing dreams about him, of yearning for him, of lying awake in her bed and no longer reliving their old adventures as she had once done, but fantasizing romantic encounters. In his absence Deborah had fallen in love with Christopher Mathenge, and now it made her unexpectedly shy.

     "I missed you," she said.

     "I missed you, too, Deb. I can't tell you what your letters meant to me." He took a few steps toward her, then stopped and looked out over the river. "There's no forest anymore."

     Deborah looked across at the patchwork shambas that covered the hillside all the way up to the top of the opposite ridge. When she and Christopher had been children, the woods had come right down to the river. Then the new African government had allocated all that land to resettled Kikuyu, who had set about at once to clearing the forest for their fields. Now there were many huts—no longer round, but square, after
mzungu
fashion—still made of mud and dung and thatched with elephant grass. And there were a few battered automobiles along the intersecting dirt lanes.

     She looked at Christopher and thought that he had changed, too. Where had those lean muscles come from, and those broad, square shoulders straining the fabric of his shirt? There was a fluidness in the way he stood; Deborah was reminded of the Masai
morani
who roamed the Amboseli plains, strikingly handsome youths, lithe and angular, who were haughty enough to regard themselves as the most beautiful race on earth. Christopher gave that impression, except that the arrogance was not there. He turned and smiled at her in a way no
moran
ever would.

     "How was England?" she asked.

     "Cold and rainy. I am glad to be back."

     He spoke differently, too. The Kikuyu accent that had always colored his speech had been polished away. Christopher no longer mixed his l's and r's, as the Kikuyu did because their language did not contain an
r.
He spoke like the Oxford scholar that he was.

     "How is your aunt?" he asked.

     "She's fine. Working as hard as ever. I remind her that she's eighty-three and should take things easy. But Aunt Grace thinks the mission will fall apart if she retires."

     "Perhaps it will."

     Deborah stared at his sunglasses. She found a degree of relief in his wearing them; they protected her from his eyes.

     "And your mother?" he asked. "What do you hear from her?"

     Deborah had a memory. She was eight years old and at the Kilima Simba Safari Camp. She had to go to the bathroom and was passing by her mother's tent. A voice came from inside: "Deborah means nothing to me, Geoffrey. I've arranged for her to live with Aunt Grace."

     "Mother rarely writes to us anymore," Deborah said, thinking of the latest perfunctory, impersonal letter. "But she says the sheep farm is doing well, and she continues to like Australia. Every Christmas she sends Aunt Grace and me woolen pullovers."

     They fell silent again, Christopher behind his sunglasses, Deborah to look down at the river rushing over pebbles and moss. The August heat was unusual; it seemed to seep up from the ground and envelop them. Kikuyu cook fires filled the air with an acrid, smoky scent. Shouts came from the
rugby field; the grinding of motors was heard up among Mr. Singh's coffee trees. A bee landed on Deborah's arm; she shooed it away.

     Christopher looked around again, slowly turning, taking it all in, the countless farms that now covered the countryside. This had once been dense forest. Wars with the Masai had been fought here generations ago, his ancestors had worshiped the trees and wild animals, and more recently Mau Mau freedom fighters had found refuge here. Now all Christopher saw were patches of green laid out neatly over the red earth. Naked children tended goats and cows; mamas were bent, with their legs straight and knees locked, pulling weeds, harvesting vegetables. It was a peaceful, reassuring scene, and Christopher, in his four years of studying in England, had sorely missed it.

     He looked at last at Deborah, who was standing in a shaft of sunlight, gazing down into the water just as she had the day he had first met her here, ten years ago.

     He thought of the letters she had sent him—once a week for four years. He had kept them all.

     At first, on the one hand homesick for Kenya but also excited by his Oxford adventure, Christopher had merely missed the gay companion of his youth, the fey little girl who had made his new life with his grandmother bearable. He had missed Deborah as he had missed Sarah and his mother, as he had missed his comrades on the rugby team.

     But then, as the first school year came and went, and then another came along, and as Deborah's letters arrived faithfully each week, he had found himself looking forward to reading her words, to getting off by himself to be alone with the letter, to spend, for a spell, a few stolen moments with her, back in Kenya. His feelings for her had begun to change, it seemed, when her letters started to change. The childishness gradually faded from her writing, and a new maturity slowly emerged. She reported on important things—the government, world events, her dream of becoming a doctor—and asked him a thousand questions about himself, his school, his future plans. Deborah's letters were a direct link to Kenya; with them he never felt cut off from home. And he never felt cut off from her but indeed drawn closer with each one that came. She had come to mean so much more to him than before.

     Voices rising in argument came from Sarah's hut.

     "Oh, dear," Deborah said, "they're at it again. Your mother's terribly angry with Sarah. Did she tell you about it?"

     "Yes. I was opposed to it at first, when Sarah wrote and said she had left Egerton College. But I know my sister. She'll find a way to get what she wants. My mother should know by now that it's no use arguing with Sarah."

     "They're very much alike, aren't they?"

     "I wonder where my grandmother is."

     "She's gone to deliver a baby." Deborah felt self-conscious; she seemed compelled to talk, to fill the space between her and Christopher. "Mama Wachera has done very well since independence. People are reverting to traditional healing, and the old witch doctors, once they came out of hiding, have become quite prosperous. As is your grandmother."

     Christopher grew thoughtful. He was going to be a doctor in four years, and he, too, intended to be prosperous.

     "Christopher, I have something to tell you," she said quickly. "I didn't write to you about it. I wanted to tell you in person. I've been awarded an Uhuru scholarship to study in California."

     She saw no reaction in him, only her twin reflections in the sunglasses. He was silent for a moment; then he said, "California. For how long?"

     "Three years."

     He was silent again, his eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. The world seemed to hold its breath. The river ran quietly; birds withheld their song in the trees. Then Christopher strode up to Deborah and put his hands on her bare arms. There was a sudden charge; they both felt it. Christopher tightened his hold as he looked down at her.

     Deborah was his oldest and dearest friend. She had rescued him from boyhood loneliness and had drawn him into her circle of sunlight. Her letters had comforted him; he had looked forward to seeing her again. But now it was all different. Something had changed.

     Deborah seemed suddenly so small and vulnerable.

     "You must take care," he said urgently. "The world is a far, far bigger place than you can imagine. You know only Kenya, Deborah, and just a small bit of that—" He caught himself. He wanted to say more, to voice this
strange, new emotion that had suddenly gripped him. He looked down at her, felt the warm skin beneath his hands, and thought:
She is so innocent.

     He was rocked by a feeling of protectiveness, of wanting to gather her to him and shelter her from all the things he himself had discovered out in the world. Kenya was such a small, insulated country. And Deborah was the child of a rural, backward province. What did she know of life?