Green City in the Sun

by Wood, Barbara

  He studied her for a moment, then said, "You're truly happy here, aren't you, Grace?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm glad. People who don't love East Africa have no right to be here. This is the only world I know. I was born here, and I shall die here. These others"—he gestured toward the noisy house—"who come here to make a quick fortune, who exploit the land and the natives—they are criminals. Those with no love for this land should go home."

  "This is my home now," she said in a quiet voice.

  James smiled and quoted softly, "'Here in a large and sunlit land, Where no wrong bites to the bone, I will lay my hand in my neighbor's hand, And together we will atone.'"

  He paused and seemed about to say something further when a voice came between them. "There you are!"

  They turned to see James's wife come through the French doors.

  Once again, as she had several times in the past ten months, Grace thought she caught a look of displeasure, or pain, cross Lucille's face. But each time it was quickly replaced by a smile, as it was now. "I'm afraid the noise has gotten a bit much in there," she said. "Someone is dancing a Highland fling!"

  James laughed. "Can you picture these merrymakers getting up in the morning for polo?"

  "My brother will see that they do! He's been exercising his ponies for a month. We should see quite a match. Have you any bets on, James?"

  "I'm afraid," said Lucille, "that we won't be here for the matches. We'll be leaving first thing in the morning."

  "Leaving?"

  "Lucille wants to go to the Methodist mission in Karatina for Christmas service."

  "But Father Mario is coming from the Catholic mission! We shall have a lovely mass on the front lawn."

  Lucille's smile hardened. "I don't wish to attend a Roman service. It's bad enough that I get to Karatina only four times a year. You know, Grace, you would be wise to write to your Mission Society for a minister instead of for the nursing sisters you've been requesting."

  "But I need nurses, Lucille. Desperately. I can't seem to train the Kikuyu to touch sick people."

  "You're going about it the wrong way. A minister would turn these heathens from their abominable practices and make Christians of them. Then you would have all the help you require."

  Grace stared at her.

  James said, "Listen! They're playing 'Silent Night.'"

  As the partyers quieted and the laughter subsided, the strings of the violins rose to fill the night. Soon the house and grounds rested in silence as the Christmas hymn was lifted up to the cold equatorial stars so far from home. A few smoky clouds, as if drawn by curiosity, detached themselves from Mount Kenya's grasp and drifted across the sky.

  Grace stood between James and Lucille; they gazed into the brightly lit rooms of Bellatu and upon the large, very diverse family that was united in a single, familiar song. Voices began to join in. Some contributed harmony. The African servants stood by with fixed expressions as the wazungu, rowdy one moment and reverent the next, grew sad-eyed and nostalgic.

  Miranda West came out of the kitchen. Across the living room, standing by the Christmas tree, she saw Lord Treverton, his baritone leading the chorus. Miranda was thinking of the new year, 1920, and of the promise it held. There was only one way to make the earl hers, and that was to give him the one thing he wanted most: a son.

  Valentine, by coincidence, was thinking the same thing but on different terms. Holding Rose's hand as they sang "Silent Night," he thought of the failure of Dr. Hare's bromide to solve the problem and of the new tack he intended to take tonight. The powder in Rose's nightly chocolate had only put her to sleep, and he didn't want her that way. He wanted her to respond, to make love to him. It had been living in tents, he concluded, that had spoiled everything. And Rose's sense of delicacy and decency ... But tonight for the first time he would take her up to their bedroom, where they would begin their proper married life together, beneath the canopy of the Treverton ancestral four-poster bed.

  Lucille, standing next to her husband on the terrace and feeling the damp night air close in on her, tried with all her heart to sing the bitterness and anger out of her soul. Lady Donald, ten-year resident of the protectorate, rancher's wife, and devoted mother, harbored a terrible secret: She detested British East Africa and cursed the day she had left England.

  "Memsaab!" came an urgent whisper through the hedge. "Memsaab!"

  Grace turned around to see Mario, his eyes wide and frightened in the darkness.

  "Come quick, memsaab! Something bad has happened!"

  "Where? What is it?"

  "It is Chief Mathenge. You come now!"

  Grace and James exchanged a look. Then James said to Lucille, "You stay here, darling. I'll go with Grace."

  They followed Mario down a serpentine path, off the house grounds, around the edge of the woods, and along the river embankment. He was leading them to Birdsong Cottage.

  "What is it, Mario?" Grace said as they rounded her house. "Where is Chief Mathenge?"

  "He is in back, memsaab."

  When Grace and James came around the corner and through the gate of her little vegetable plot, they stopped short. In the dark they could make out a shape sprawled among the maize and bean plants. "Bring me my torch, Mario," Grace said as she ran to Mathenge's side.

  The young chief was lying on his back, looking as if he slept, but when Grace felt for a pulse, she found none. And his skin was cold. James, kneeling opposite, looked at Grace. "What is it? What happened to him?"

  "I don't know...." Her eyes searched his body. She saw no wounds, no blood. But it was too dark really to see. Black clouds now covered the moon.

  When Mario returned with the flashlight, Grace turned it on Mathenge's face. Her hand froze.

  "My God," said Sir James.

  Mario cried out and jumped back.

  Grace stared at the beautiful sleeping face, half hidden by the ether cone. She moved the flashlight along his body and found the empty ether bottle in his right hand.

  "My God," murmured James again. "How did this happen? Who did this?"

  Grace felt herself go cold and numb as she looked down at Mathenge's eyes, closed in eternal sleep. There were no signs of violence about him; his clothes were unrumpled; his hair, still fixed in the Masai warrior style, lay neatly braided on his forehead. He looked, in fact, as if he had come into the garden to lie down for a peaceful nap.

  "I don't think anyone did this to him," Grace said slowly. "He did it himself."

  "That's not possible. Kikuyu don't commit suicide."

  She regarded James with damp eyes. "He didn't intend it to be a suicide. He hadn't planned on dying. He expected to wake up as Mario had—"

  "Good God," James murmured, his look incredulous, "he wanted to know the secret of the white man's power!"

  "It's Christmas," she said with a sob, "the birthday of his new god. He believed—" She started to cry.

  James came around, drew Grace to her feet, and took her into his arms. As she wept on his shoulder, more clouds rolled down from Mount Kenya and began to fill the sky, obliterating the stars, making the night deeper and darker.

  "It's my fault! It's all my fault!"

  James held her tightly. "It's not your fault, Grace. You're not responsible for Africa's innocence."

  She cried awhile longer, then drew back, wiping the tears off her cheeks. At her feet lay the body of the beautiful, once proud chief whose spear the white man had taken away. As she shivered in the shelter of James's arms, Grace stared down at the dark, pathetic shape among the vegetables and realized that something profoundly significant had just taken place. With Mathenge's childlike death went the last of Africa's true warriors. And something else...

  "Will there be trouble, do you suppose?" she asked as they went back to the house.

  James didn't think so. There was no foul play involved, no causes for revenge against another clan. Mathenge would be quietly buried, and a new chief would be appointed in his place.
/>   They arrived to find Hardy Acres, the well-fed banker, dressed as Father Christmas and distributing gifts from a huge sack. Grace skirted the crowd and went to her brother, who sat like a king presiding over the dispersing of his largess. Each gift was wrapped and tagged with a name: perfume or lace handkerchiefs or silver combs for the ladies; hunting knives or silk cravats or crocodileskin billfolds for the gentlemen.

  She approached him from behind and whispered in his ear.

  "Not now, old girl," he said merrily.

  "Valentine, you didn't hear me. I said there's been an accident."

  "You're the doctor, you take care of it."

  A few comic gifts scattered among the crowd caused occasional eruptions of laughter. Then a rumble, too loud for laughter, brought everyone to fall silent and look up. Thunder crashed overhead.

  "I say," began Mr. Acres, "you don't suppose ..."

  "Val," said Grace, taking advantage of the lull, "you have to come with me. It's Chief Mathenge—"

  "Where is the chap? He was invited to this, you know."

  "Good Lord," said Sir James, "did you invite his wife as well?"

  Grace looked up, just as everyone else turned toward the front door. A shocked silence filled the room; two hundred pairs of eyes stared in disbelief.

  Wachera stood like a statue beneath the crystal chandelier of the entry, looking as if she had materialized on the spot. She gazed at the sea of white faces, an exotic figure against the mahogany hat-rack, the brass umbrella stand. Wachera was dressed for a special occasion.

  A leather dress and aprons covered her strong, slender body. Row upon row of beaded necklaces lay across her breast and shoulders, rising up along her neck, appearing to support her head. Great circles of beads stood out from her ears, which were pierced on the tops and sides as well as at the lobes. Her arms up to her elbows and her ankles up to her knees were glorious with beads and copper bangles and leather bands stitched with cowry shells. Strings of beads crisscrossed her forehead; copper headbands encircled her black, shaved skull; a single thong strung with three beads came down between her eyes and rested on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes, wide and slanting above prominent cheekbones, looked upon the stunned crowd with a hooded expression.

  Recovering from his shock at seeing her, Valentine rose and said, "What the devil is she doing here?"

  Wachera took a step forward, and the crowd parted. It was then that Grace saw the little boy David, Mathenge's son, naked except for a necklace, clutching his mother's hand.

  Valentine motioned to the servants to remove her, but they did not move. For all their Christian names and fluency in English, for all the white man's gloves they wore, the servants were Kikuyu nonetheless and afraid of a medicine woman.

  "What do you want?" Valentine finally demanded.

  Wachera walked toward him, and when she was a few feet from Valentine, she stopped and regarded him.

  Their eyes locked, and then Lord Valentine slowly sat back down.

  Surely, he thought, this was not the same shy and self-effacing girl who had come into the camp in humility, bowing and offering him gifts! Valentine narrowed his eyes and looked around. Where was the grandmother?

  And it was not a humble murmur that now filled the room when Wachera spoke, but the voice of a proud and defiant spirit. Wachera spoke in Kikuyu, which few present understood but which Sir James translated.

  "You have defiled sacred ground," the medicine woman said. "You have destroyed the home of the ancestors. You have committed uncleanliness against the Lord of Brightness. You will be punished."

  Valentine was stupefied. "What the devil is she talking about?"

  Wachera continued: "I call down the Spirits of the Wind." She lifted the sacred divination gourd from her belt; it contained magic charms collected by a nameless ancestress centuries ago. When she shook it, the rattling filled the house. "The ancestors place thahu upon this sinful place!" She turned and shook the rattle toward each corner, saying, "Evil spirits dwell there. And there. And there." She raised the gourd over her head. "And under your roof. Until this land is returned to the Children of Mumbi, you will know sickness and misery and poverty all the days of your life. Until this land is returned to the Children of Mumbi, the chameleon will visit this unclean house."

  "The chameleon!" said Valentine, shifting impatiently in his chair. If the servants wouldn't remove her, then by God he was going to.

  James said, "The chameleon is a symbol of the worst bad luck to the Kikuyu. By inviting a chameleon into your house, she is wishing you—"

  "Until this land is returned to the Children of Mumbi," she said in a deadly tone, "your children will drink of the dew."

  "Now what the bloody hell does that mean?"

  "It's a Kikuyu proverb. To drink of the dew means to vanish."

  "All right," said Valentine, standing. "This has gone on long enough. Get out of my house."

  "Thahu!" cried Wachera. "A curse upon you and your descendants until this land is returned to the Children of Mumbi!"

  "I said get out!" He looked around. "Where the devil is Mathenge? I thought these people kept their women in line! You there!" He pointed to two terrified Africans. "Show this woman the way out." But they were frozen with fear. By tomorrow morning they planned to be far away from this house with thahu upon it.

  "Very well then!" shouted Valentine. He strode toward Wachera and reached out to seize her arm. At that exact moment a great clap of thunder shook the house. And then came the soft whisper of rain.

  "Hey!" cried one of the guests. "It's raining!"

  The crowd broke up as everyone ran to the windows and doors. They dashed outside into the downpour, faces and hands lifted to the glorious wet, hugging one another, laughing and delirious with joy.

  The rain pounded the roof, drove against the windows, while thunder filled the thirsty valley.

  "Well!" said Valentine in a triumphant tone. He faced Wachera squarely, feet apart and hands on his hips. "If this is your idea of a curse, then I welcome it!" He threw back his head and laughed. Then he turned on his heel, took hold of Rose's hand, and led her across the room to join the rain-soaked crowd on the veranda.

  Only Sir James and Grace remained behind, and little Mona in her high chair. Wachera paused to give the three a long, considering look, then she turned to walk away, her hand holding fast to David.

  "Wait," said Grace. "I have something to tell you. It's about Mathenge." Wachera stopped and leveled a poisonous gaze upon Grace. "My husband is dead," she said in Kikuyu, and although she did not add, And you killed him, it was in her eyes.

  THERE WOULD BE no polo match or fox hunting tomorrow; the field where the guest tents stood would be a knee-deep mud morass by morning; travel back to distant homes and farms would be nearly impossible and wretchedly uncomfortable. But no one minded. The long-prayed-for rain had come at last, and it was coming down so torrentially and steadily, with no end to the rolling black clouds, that everyone knew crops and investments were going to be saved.

  Grace had returned to Birdsong Cottage to find that wild animals had already dragged Mathenge's body away, and she decided sadly that this was probably how he would have wanted it. Now she was asleep in bed with Sheba, the great, snoring cheetah, pressed against her back. Sir James and Lucille were comfortably situated in one of the guest rooms in the big house, as were the governor, and Lord and Lady Delamere, while the two hundred other guests were inconveniently but happily making do with leaky tents and damp cots. Only one person was not at peace with the outcome of the evening. Lady Rose, as she sat at her vanity table brushing her newly cut hair, was puzzled.

  After a decorous frolic in the rain she and Valentine had bidden good night to their guests and retired to the second floor, where hot baths awaited them. She had been pleasantly surprised to see how nicely Valentine had furnished and decorated the upper half of the house: the tubs with hot and cold taps; indoor plumbing with ceramic toilets; Turkey carpets on the cedar floors; painti
ngs and photographs on the walls. There was a homey warmth to it all, especially with the storm raging outside. And yet...

  Rose felt strangely unsettled. Valentine was in the bath, singing above the steam. He had shown her into this bedroom and told her he would join her soon. Here Rose had found her trunks unpacked, with everything hung up and put away, her toiletries and cosmetics laid out on the vanity. Clearly this was her bedroom. Then which was Valentine's?

  He came out of the bathroom in silk monogrammed pajamas and dressing gown, his black hair moist and curling over his forehead. "Merry Christmas, darling," he said as he came to stand behind her. "Did you have a good time?"

  She looked at his reflection in the mirror. She felt the warmth of his body through her satin peignoir. How handsome he was, how perfect. Let him hold me tonight before I go to sleep. "It was wonderful, Valentine. It was better even than I dreamed. But, oh, this rain will spoil the rest of the fun. I had so looked forward to luncheon on the front lawn tomorrow. Mrs. West was going to serve a proper high tea."

  He placed his hands lightly on her shoulders. "The rain is badly needed, darling. Now James's cattle won't die and our coffee won't fail and Mr. Acres won't have to foreclose on just about every mortgage in the protectorate."

  Valentine came around and knelt at her side. "I have a present for you," he said.

  Her eyes twinkled. The champagne, the altitude ...

  He handed her a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. Rose tore it open and exclaimed at the jade and emerald necklace it contained. "Four continents went into making that," he said. "Do you like it?"

  She threw her arms about his neck. "Valentine, dearest! It's exquisite! But I haven't wrapped your present yet. I was going to give it to you in the morning."

  "It can wait." His arms went about her waist. "Happy?"

  She buried her face in his neck. "I've never been happier. The house is perfect, Valentine. Thank you."