At the end of the hall the flashlight swept briefly over something that caught Mona's attention. She stopped and stared up at the portrait, holding the light on a familiar face.
"Why," she breathed, "it's Aunt Grace! Looking ever so pretty!"
Njeri looked up, mystified. She recognized Memsaab Daktari.
"But hasn't she got funny clothes on?" Mona said. Then she realized that it wasn't her aunt at all, but a woman who looked very much like her.
Mona moved the light away from the portrait and resumed walking down the hall without having realized two things: that the face she had just seen was that of the grandmother she had never known—Grace and Valentine and Harold's mother, Mildred—and that its features bore a striking resemblance to her own.
When they rounded a corner, Mona stopped short, and Njeri bumped into her. "Someone's coming!" Mona hissed. They scrambled back around and ducked into an alcove.
The two children watched with wide eyes, their teeth chattering with fear and cold, as a portly figure in a dressing gown went up to a closed door. It was Uncle Harold. He knocked and entered, closing the door behind himself.
When she heard voices inside the room, Mona crept forward and pressed her ear to the wood. She recognized her uncle's voice and then her mother's.
"I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, Rose," Harold was saying, "but what I have to tell you is very important and can't wait until morning. I'll come right to the point. Rose, you've got to tell Valentine to stop his spendthrift ways."
"Whatever are you talking about?"
"He hasn't answered any of my letters. The next shall come from the family solicitor, you can tell him that for me. Rose? Will you please put down that yarn and look at me?"
There was a murmur, and then Harold boomed, "At the rate Valentine is going, there will be nothing left of Bella Hill! He's selling land right and left. It's barely half the size it was ten years ago."
"But he owns Bella Hill, Harold," said Rose's gentle voice. "He can do what he likes with it. After all, it's not as if this were your house."
"Rose, I appreciate the fact that my brother allows us to live here. But I cannot stand by while he ruins the family inheritance and home. You must tell him to curtail his spending."
"Oh, Harold, you're imagining things."
"Rose, the coffee farm is running at a loss. It has been ever since he started it."
Mona heard her mother laugh. "What nonsense! We have parties every weekend, house guests. We are hardly impoverished, Harold!"
He made an exasperated sound. "And another thing," he said. "Here. Read this. It's a letter from Grace. She wants you to come home at once. It's something to do with your son."
"Poor little Arthur. He can't help being a clumsy boy. You know, he's forever falling down, banging his head, cutting his elbows. It infuriates Valentine."
"Rose, this is serious. Read the letter."
"Harold, I'm frightfully tired right now."
"There's one more thing, Rose. You can't enroll Mona in Farnsworth's tomorrow."
"Why ever not?"
"Because it's an expense Valentine cannot afford. I won't have him selling off more Bella Hill land just to send his daughter to an expensive school."
"Of course we can afford to send Mona to Farnsworth's!"
"Rose, you are living in a fool's paradise. Hasn't Valentine told you anything about your financial affairs? That farm is being run on a bank overdraft and proceeds from Bella Hill sales! It's only a matter of time before the whole thing collapses!"
"Mona is going to the academy, and that's all there is to it."
"I'm afraid not, Rose. In order for her to attend that school, she must have a sponsor here in England who will be responsible for her. That is one of the rules. I am taking back my offer to be that guardian. You must take Mona back with you to Kenya, on the first available boat. As far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed."
"Then I shall find someone else to sponsor her."
"Who? You have no family left, Rose. Do be reasonable. Keep the child in Kenya, where you can be near her. I know for a fact that Lady Ashbury's niece attends the European school in Nairobi and that it is very highly regarded. You'll see, Rose. It's the best thing."
On the other side of the door the two children looked at each other. Then Mona slumped against the wall and smiled.
She was going home.
22
D
AKTARI! DAKTARI!"
Grace looked up to see Mario running into the compound.
He thundered up the steps of her new thatch clinic, past the crowd of patients waiting on the veranda, and burst in. "Memsaab Daktari!" he cried breathlessly. "Come quick!"
In their years together Grace had rarely seen Mario so excited. "What is it?" she said as she handed the child she had been examining to the nurse.
"My sister! She is dying!"
Grabbing her medical bag and pith helmet, Grace followed Mario down the veranda steps and through the compound that was formed by six thatch buildings. They ran between clotheslines where mattresses and sheets from the inpatient ward were airing, past the goat and sheep paddock, through the cluster of huts where her ten employees were housed, out through the fence that enclosed Grace Treverton Mission, across Valentine's polo field, past Wachera's hut, across the wooden bridge, and up the opposite slope, where women harvesting ripe beans in the fields paused to watch the memsaab fly by, her white skirt billowing, the familiar black bag in her hand.
Mario led his mistress along narrow paths between acres of maize that was in cob and taller than them, across patches of sweet potatoes and pumpkins growing over the ground in tangled mats, past one village, then another, until Grace was out of breath and clutching her side.
At last they came to Mario's village, nestled in the hills overlooking the Chania River, a collection of round mud huts with cone-shaped papyrus roofs giving off spirals of blue smoke. When they entered the village, Grace saw that no one was working; people were standing about, and a strange silence hung in the air. She pushed through and saw to her surprise one of the priests from the Catholic mission, a young man named Father Guido, fetching something from the pack on his bicycle.
"What has happened, Father?" she asked as she drew close.
His face looked darkly angry beneath the broad rim of his sun hat. His black cassock was dusty and sweat-stained; he, too, had come in a hurry. "There has been another secret initiation, Doctor," he said. And then Grace saw what he was retrieving from his pack: items used in performing the last rites.
"Dear God," she whispered, and followed him.
Several elders barred the way to the hut; mothers and aunts raised their hands and cried for the wazungu not to interfere.
"Who is in there with her?" Grace asked Father Guido.
"Wachera Mathenge, the medicine woman."
"How did you hear about this?"
"From Mario. This village is nearly all Catholic. The girl is named Teresa; she attends our school. Kwenda!" the priest said to the grim-faced elders. "You must let me enter! Teresa belongs to the Lord!"
Grace studied the fixed expressions of the men and women, law-abiding Kikuyu who normally deferred to the authority of a priest. But this was no ordinary situation.
The missionaries had been trying for a long time to abolish the practice of circumcision on girls, which involved the surgical removal of the clitoris. It was officially outlawed in Kenya and called for a fine or imprisonment for anyone caught engaging in the ritual. On the surface the initiations appeared to have stopped. But in fact, they had only gone underground. Grace knew that such savage rites were now being conducted in secret places where the local police could not find out about them.
"Please let me see her," Grace said in Kikuyu. "Perhaps I can help."
"Thahu!" cried an old woman who must have been Teresa's grandmother.
Grace felt Father Guido shift nervously at her side. The entire population of the village stood around them in a tig
ht circle; tension and hostility were in the air. "When did the initiation take place?" she asked the priest quietly.
"I do not know, Dr. Treverton. I only know that twelve girls were involved and that Teresa is dying from an infection to the wound."
Grace appealed to the elders. "You must let us enter!"
But it was useless. For all their education and Christianizing these people were still strongly tied to the old ways. They went to church every Sunday at Father Guido's mission and then went into the forest to practice the ancient barbaric rituals.
"Shall I call the District Officer?" Grace said. "You will all be put in jail! He will take away all your goats and burn your huts to the ground! Is that what you want?"
The elders remained impassive. They blocked the doorway of the hut with arms folded.
"It is wrong what you have done!" cried Father Guido. "You have committed an abomination in the sight of God!"
Finally one of the elders spoke. "Does not the Bible tell us that Lord Jesu was circumcised?"
"Indeed, it does. But nowhere does it say His blessed mother Mary was!"
Several pairs of eyes blinked. One elderly aunt glanced over her shoulder.
"Have we not taught you that the old ways are bad? Did you not embrace the love of Jesus Christ and promise to keep His laws?" Father Guido pointed a shaking finger toward the sky. His voice rang over their heads. "You will be cast out of heaven for what you have done! You will burn in the hellfire of black Satan for your evil sins."
Grace saw the stony faces start to break. Then Mario stepped forward and pleaded in rapid Kikuyu with his relatives to let the holy man and the memsaab into Teresa's hut.
There was a moment of silence, in which seven Kikuyu elders matched the stares of the two white people; then the old grandmother stepped to one side.
Father Guido and Grace entered the hut and found Teresa lying on a bed of fresh leaves; the darkness was filled with the drone of flies and the pungent scent of ceremonial herbs. Kneeling at her side was Wachera.
While Father Guido knelt opposite, opening his small bag and removing the silk stole and holy water, implements for the administering of the final sacrament, Grace bent to examine the girl.
The wound had been treated in what Grace knew to be the ritualistic way, a strict formula handed down through the generations. Special leaves had been dipped in antiseptic oil and bound between Teresa's legs. They had been changed recently, no doubt by the specially appointed "nurse," who would bury the old leaves in a secret, taboo place where no man might accidentally walk. Teresa would also have been fed special food of a religious nature, Grace knew, and she would have eaten it off a banana leaf.
The whole process of initiation into womanhood was a sacred and holy thing, something few whites had ever witnessed, and it was as sacred and meaningful to the Kikuyu as the mass conducted at the altar was to Catholics. But it was a cruel and inhumane practice which caused a great deal of pain and suffering and blood loss and a deformity that created problems for the woman in later life, such as difficulty in childbirth. Grace had joined the missionaries in the fight for its abolition.
Mario's sister was very pretty, Grace could see in what little light came into the hut. About sixteen years of age, she guessed, with delicate features and a touching innocence about her. Teresa's eyes were open. Grace gently closed them—because the girl was dead.
While Father Guido solemnly murmured the prayers of the last rites, Grace bowed her head and felt the sting of tears.
She was not praying; she was clenching her teeth in frustration and anger. Teresa was the fourth girl Grace had seen die as a result of blood poisoning after an initiation, brought on by the knife of the medicine woman who had performed the operation. She had also heard of other girls dying from infections that might have been cured if a European doctor had been called in time.
Grace looked up and met Wachera's eyes.
For an instant the air inside the hut was charged; the energies of the two rivals—Wachera and Grace—seemed to clash within the mud walls.
Then Grace said in Kikuyu, "I am going to see that your evil practices are brought to an end. I know the black magic you practice. I have heard from my patients. I have tolerated you long enough. Because of you and others like you, this child is dead."
While Grace trembled with anger, the medicine woman gazed back with a masked expression. Wachera was still beautiful, tall, and slender, with her head shaved, rows of beads and copper covering her long arms, her supple body dressed in soft hides. She was an anachronism among Christianized Kikuyu; Wachera existed like a ghost from their ancestral past. She gazed at Grace Treverton in arrogance and pride. Then she rose and left the hut.
GRACE RETURNED TO her mission to find Valentine pacing back and forth in front of the clinic building. When she saw what he had in his hand and the little boy who crouched in terror by the veranda steps, she knew why her brother had come.
"Look at this!" Valentine shouted, flinging the object at her. It hit Grace in the chest and fell to the ground. She picked it up and saw that it was one of Mona's dolls. "I caught him playing with it again!"
"Oh, Valentine." She sighed. "He's only seven years old." Grace walked past her brother and squatted beside Arthur, who, she saw at once, had received another parental thrashing.
"I will not have you mollycoddling him! You and Rose are turning my son into a Percy boy!"
Grace put her arms about Arthur, and he burst into tears. "Poor little thing," she murmured, stroking his hair.
"Damn it, Grace! Listen to me!"
She glared up at him. "No, you listen to me, Valentine Treverton! I have just seen a child who was truly ruined, and I will not listen to your shouting over something ridiculous. Another girl has died because of an initiation, and I was unable to save her. What are you doing about these initiations, Valentine? They're your people. You should care!"
"What's it to me what a bunch of blacks do? My only concern is for my son. I will not have him playing with dolls!"
"No," she said slowly. "You don't care what the Africans do. And you care more about yourself than about your son."
A deep flush raced up his neck as Valentine glowered at his sister, then turned and walked away.
Inside the cool thatch building that was her clinic, Grace comforted Arthur. He had bruises about his neck and shoulders.
"Hello," said a soft voice as a silhouette filled the open doorway.
Grace looked up. Her heart leaped. "James. You're home."
"I got in last night and came straight to see you—Hello, what's happened here?"
"Valentine again."
James stepped inside and said, "Hello, Arthur."
"Hello, Uncle James."
"My brother thinks he can terrorize his son into manhood," Grace said quietly, trying to keep the anger out of her voice so as not to frighten the boy. "I'm going to stop these beatings if I have to ... You'll be all right, Arthur. You're not hurt badly."
"Have you written to Rose about it?"
"She should be arriving any minute now, in fact. Her letter wasn't very precise—you know Rose."
"Then Mona is in school in England?"
"Yes. At the academy Rose went to as a girl."
"You'll miss Mona, won't you?"
"Yes, terribly."
Grace gave her nephew a kiss on the head, then set him down on the floor, a boy who was too small for his age and who had inherited his mother's dreamy temperament. "Go on now, love," Grace said gently. "Go and play."
"Where shall I go?" he asked, bewilderment in his large blue eyes.
"Where would you like to go, Arthur?"
He pretended to think a moment. Then he said, "May I go and see the babies?"
She smiled and patted him on his way. Valentine had forbidden Arthur to set foot in Grace's maternity hut, but she had decided not to heed her brother's orders.
"James!" she said as they walked out of the clinic. "What a wonderful surprise to see you!"
They stepped outside, and when Grace looked at the way the sunshine brought out the auburn highlights in James's dark brown hair, she felt the familiar rush of love and the ache that never left her. Each time he went away she felt a part of herself go with him. When he came back, she was whole again.
"I missed you," she said.
They followed the path toward her house, passing the thatch buildings she had added. One of them was the small maternity clinic where Arthur spent most of his time looking at the newborn babies.
As James and Grace walked up onto the veranda of her cottage, she said, "What is the news from Uganda?"
"The same as always. Sleeping sickness, malaria, blackwater. Nothing new, I'm afraid. And you, Grace? How has the mission been these past four months?"
She went into the house and returned with two glasses of lemonade. Handing one to James, she said, "You've been gone five months. We have a new henhouse and a new blackboard for the classroom."
He laughed. "Here's to chickens and education," he said, and they drank.
James studied Grace over the rim of his glass. She looked as neat and crisp as usual. Despite the demands of running her mission school and clinic, Grace was always dressed in a clean white blouse and skirt, her short hair always in place. And she was even more beautiful, he thought, than when he had last seen her.
"Is something troubling you, Grace?"
"There's been another initiation. Mario's sister died." She sat in a wicker chair. "I have to be firmer with these people, James. I've got to put my foot down and make them realize that the old ways are bad for them. This is the twentieth century. Modern medicine is reaching a peak that is unknown in all of history. We work miracles these days. But still, when they're frightened, they run to a tribal healer."
"Traditional healing isn't all bad, Grace."
"Yes, it is. It's witchcraft, plain and simple. Who knows what that woman puts into her concoctions!" Grace waved a hand toward Valentine's polo field and the hut at its end.
Green City in the Sun Page 24