Green City in the Sun

by Wood, Barbara

  She carefully folded the letter and slipped it in her pocket. She would read it several more times during the day, as she drove around the estate overseeing the field hands, and then that night, she would lie in bed and think about Geoffrey.

  It had come to her at last—love. Mona had heard that wartime did that, that the threat of danger and death made people turn to one another. Wasn't there an old family story about Aunt Grace and a shipboard romance during the first war? Mona marveled now, as she left the kitchen to start her day's rounds, at how easily love had come to her. Seven years ago, as she had stood in Sir James's sickroom in Uganda, she had looked at Geoffrey and had wondered if perhaps she could someday love him the way her aunt loved his father. And so she had decided to wait and see. "I'm not refusing you," she had said to Geoffrey on their return to Kenya when he again asked her to marry him. "But I'm only just out of school. Let me get used to the idea." He had agreed, and they had spent the next two years as a "couple," making the rounds of parties together, being part of the young smart set. They had even kissed; but Mona had not been able to allow further intimacy, and Geoffrey, respecting her wish, had not pressed.

  And then war had broken out, and everything had changed. Suddenly the world was upside down. All the young men of Kenya got into uniform and began leaving for mysterious parts of the world—Geoffrey to garrison duty in Palestine, where he commanded a "colored" regiment. The letters had started coming from him after that, and Mona had begun to miss him more and more until she felt stirrings of desire—her first—and she realized with great relief that she was not, after all, like her mother: incapable of love.

  When Geoffrey came home for good, Mona decided, she was going to say yes to him.

  ROSE PAUSED BEFORE the door of the greenhouse. She saw that the padlock had been wrenched off and was lying in the dirt.

  Another break-in! she thought in alarm. The fourth this year!

  It had never happened before the war, when Valentine was always around. But since the bwana had been gone for so long, some of the local people were starting to disregard the laws. Usually they stole only the tools—things they could sell—but one time they had taken some valuable plants. Worried, Rose rushed inside.

  A hand shot out from behind the door and seized her. She was pulled back, her arm was twisted up behind her, and a man's voice said close to her ear, "Do not move, signora."

  Rose stared at her rows of silent flowers as she felt the sharp edge of a knife blade touch her throat.

  35

  R

  OSE STOOD FROZEN, WITH THE KNIFE AT HER THROAT AND THE man against her back, holding her in a painful grip. She looked at the half-opened door and thought of Njeri a few yards away, setting up the tapestry frame. Rose opened her mouth; the knife bit into her neck.

  "No sound!" he whispered.

  She closed her eyes.

  "Do not move, signora. Listen to me."

  She listened; she waited. He was having difficulty breathing. She felt his body shudder. The hand that clutched her bare arm was hot and damp.

  "Per favore . . . mi aiuti ... "The grip started to slip. "Please," he whispered, "help me ..."

  Suddenly the knife fell away, and Rose was free. She jumped back as the stranger sank to his knees. The knife clattered to the stone floor.

  "Please," he said again, clutching his chest, his head bowed, "I need—"

  Rose stared down at him. There was blood on her arm—his blood.

  She watched him crumple to the floor, where he lay on his side. His eyes were closed; his face was distorted in pain.

  "Ascolti," he breathed. "Chiami un prete. Bring me—" Rose fell back against the wall.

  "Please," he groaned. "I beg of you, bring me un prete."

  She started to shake. She saw the blood on his shirt and the grass stains and grime of his having fled through the bush. He was barefoot; his feet were cut and bleeding. And his face was streaked with dirt and sweat.

  "A priest," he said. "I am dying. Please, signora. Bring me a priest." Rose moved away, terrified. She stumbled over a clay pot; she groped for the door. Mona's voice echoed in her mind: They butchered a guard. And then she saw something that made her stop.

  Red stripes of blood were soaking through the back of his shirt.

  She stared down. She was confused; she tried to think.

  "Who—" she began. "Who are you?"

  He didn't answer.

  "I'm going for a policeman," she said. Rose shook so badly that she was afraid her legs were going to give way.

  But he didn't respond, didn't move.

  She continued to stare at the bloody stripes on his shirt. Then, cautiously, as if approaching a dangerous, injured animal, Rose took a step toward him. She paused, watching him. Then she took another step, and another, until she stood over him.

  The stranger lay curled on his side, his eyes closed, gasping for breath.

  "You're one of the escaped prisoners, aren't you?" she said in a shaky voice.

  He lay moaning.

  Rose wrung her hands. "Why did you come here? I can't help you!" Her eyes were fixed on the stripes on his back; blood continued to seep through the fabric of his shirt.

  She was filled with terror.

  "You're the enemy," she said. "How dare you ask me for help? I'll send word to the men who are searching for you. They'll know what to do with you."

  He whispered one word: "Priest..."

  "You're mad to think I'll help you!" she cried. "Dear God—" Rose could see that he was in terrible pain. And she thought: He's dying.

  When she realized that he couldn't hurt her now and that he had probably never intended to, she slowly knelt and looked at the stripes on his shirt. She was overcome. "They whipped you ..." she murmured.

  His eyes opened briefly. They were dark and damp; they reminded her of the eyes of a wounded antelope. His body shook. He moaned.

  "Help me," he whispered. "In the name of God ..." His eyes closed. His body grew still.

  Rose chewed her lip.

  And then suddenly she was on her feet. "Njeri!" she called, going through the door of the greenhouse.

  The African girl looked up, startled.

  "Go back to the house," Rose said breathlessly. "And fetch me some soap and water and towels. Bring them back here."

  Njeri looked puzzled.

  "Hurry!"

  "Yes, memsaab."

  "And blankets," Rose called as she hurried down the path that led from the glade.

  As she ran down the steps that led to the mission area below the forest, Rose tried to think of where her sister-in-law would be at this hour. Grace would know what to do for the man; she would take care of him.

  But when Rose turned onto the gravel drive that led to Grace's house, she remembered in dismay that Grace was in Nairobi!

  Rose stopped at the intersection of three dirt roads and looked around. She twisted her hands. Seeing the smear of blood on her arm, she thought of the infirmary, a small cinder-block building where minor injuries were treated.

  She approached it uncertainly, afraid to be seen and having no idea what she was going to do when she got inside. But when Rose went up the steps and walked through the door, an idea came to her.

  There was a new "miracle" drug Grace had spoken of recently, something that stopped infection and saved lives in even the most extreme cases and that was going to revolutionize medicine. But what was it called?

  Rose couldn't remember.

  The infirmary was unattended. Its one room sat in sunlight, clean and shining and waiting for patients. Rose looked around. The attendant would no doubt be arriving any minute, coming from his breakfast. Rose would have to hurry.

  The name of the miracle drug, it seemed to her, began with P. She went to the medicine cabinet and peered through the glass doors. She tried to read the labels. Some were familiar to her; most were not. And none began with P. When she saw the morphine bottle, she decided to take it.

  As she was about to
hurry out, she saw it: a small carton of newly delivered medicine. The name was on the box: penicillin. Grace's miracle drug.

  Seizing a few other items but having no real idea what she needed or in what quantity or even how to use them, Rose bundled everything into a linen towel and quickly left the infirmary.

  When she arrived at the glade, she found Njeri sitting in the gazebo with a bucket of water, a bottle of floor soap, one towel, and no blanket.

  "Hand soap, Njeri!" she said. "For washing hands. And a blanket and pillow. Run! And don't talk to anyone."

  Rose pushed open the door of the greenhouse and looked in.. The stranger hadn't moved. He lay in the diffuse light coming through the skylight, his battered body an obscenity among the colorful blossoms and potted fruit trees.

  She felt a strong emotion rush through her, an emotion that was at once familiar and yet alien. Rose had experienced this compulsion many times in the past—to rescue injured or orphaned animals and to protect and nurture them. But never before had she felt it toward a human being. It baffled her. This man was an enemy; her husband was in the north fighting Italians. And yet Rose did not see an enemy in the poor, abused body lying among her flowers. She was observing the prisoner not with her eyes but with her heart, and her heart saw only a living creature in need of help.

  She knelt at his side. He was still alive but, she feared, only barely. "Can you hear me?" she said. "I'm going to try to help you. I've brought medicines."

  He lay on his side, unresponsive.

  Rose reached out, hesitated, then touched his forehead. It was hot.

  She looked around the greenhouse. There was a clear space on the other side of her workbench, wide enough for a man to lie down. Setting aside her infirmary bundle, Rose walked around and slipped her hands under his arms.

  But she couldn't move him.

  "Please," she said, "you must help me to move you."

  He groaned.

  She started to panic. He lay exposed near the open door. Hardly anyone ever came to the eucalyptus glade, but if someone did, the stranger could be seen.

  And then Rose realized she had to hide him. It wasn't an action she questioned. Deeper, more complex currents were compelling her now: the instinct to protect any injured creature from its predators.

  She looked around again. There were her new rosebushes, lined up along the nearest wall and taking in the gentle sunlight, awaiting transplantation. Hurrying, Rose dragged the heavy pots over the stone floor until she decided there was enough room for the man. Then she came back to him and, by pulling and pushing, managed to move him out of the way of the door.

  Having first covered the floor with a blanket, she then laid the stranger down among her roses.

  THERE WAS NOTHING Njeri Mathenge would not do for her mistress.

  Even though it was Memsaab Grace who had given birth to Njeri when she had lifted her from Gachiku's womb twenty-five years ago, and even though it had also been Memsaab Grace who had tried to save her from the terrible irua ceremony seven years ago, it was Memsaab Rose to whom David Mathenge's half sister was steadfastly devoted.

  Njeri could not remember a time when she had not longed to live in the big stone house and be near the beautiful lady who looked like a sunshine spirit. From her earliest years, when she had run away repeatedly from her mother's shamba to spy on the lady in the glade, Njeri had always sensed a special magic in her memsaab. A sweet sadness engulfed the bwana's wife; she walked with an aura of melancholy that no one else seemed to sense but that the gentle Njeri, in her unique perception, felt sharply.

  They were always together, Njeri and Lady Rose. In the early days Njeri had crept from her mother's hut to sit with the lady in the glade, who never questioned the little girl's sudden appearance one day but who accepted her with a smile and fed her from the ever-present wicker basket. In those days Memsaab Mona, the lady's daughter who was the same age as Njeri, had also been in the gazebo with them, taking lessons from governesses. But then Mona had gone away to school in Nairobi, and Njeri had had the lady all to herself. After that Memsaab Rose had taken Njeri into the household as her personal maid, paying the girl three shillings a month, which Njeri turned over to her mother. Njeri now lived the perfect life: She wore the memsaab's castoff dresses; she slept outside her bedroom door in the big house; she brought up Lady Rose's morning tea and then spent an hour combing out the waterfall of hair.

  Njeri could not understand why her brother, David, or the girl Wanjiru didn't like the wazungu. Njeri worshiped them and their whiteness and wonderful ways, and she thought how dark and unwelcoming Kikuyuland must have been before they arrived.

  She chuffed along the path with her blanket, pillow, and bar of the memsaab's special Yardley Lavender soap, and she did it unquestioningly. Njeri never questioned her mistress's orders or actions, and never would.

  But when she walked through the door of the greenhouse, Njeri cried out and dropped her things.

  "Hush!" said Rose. "Come here and help me!"

  Njeri couldn't move. Old Kikuyu taboos rooted her to the stone floor.

  "Njeri!"

  The girl gaped at the man lying facedown on the blanket, his shirt removed, his back exposed. The memsaab was touching him—his wounds, his blood.

  Rose jumped to her feet, snatched up the dropped soap, and took Njeri by the arm. "Stop gawking and come and help me! The man is hurt."

  Njeri went woodenly and knelt opposite the memsaab, but she couldn't bring herself to touch him. She watched as Rose gently washed the half-healed stripes on his back, watched those slender white hands, which never touched anything unclean or unbeautiful, bathe away the old blood and dirt, carefully dry the wounds, and then apply a healing salve.

  Finally Rose sat back and said, "That might help. I don't know what else to do. I think he has a dangerously high fever. He might die from it. Some of these wounds are infected, and they're causing the fever."

  Njeri's eyes moved over the stranger's back. Then she saw what her mistress must have also seen: old scars among the new. "He has been punished many times, memsaab."

  Rose studied the bottle of penicillin. She had no idea how much to give him. Too little, certainly, would be useless. But could too much kill him? What on earth was penicillin anyway?

  Her hands trembled as she filled the hypodermic syringe, doing it the way she had seen Grace do it, with two fingers through the metal rings, her thumb guiding the plunger. It was a heavy, cumbersome instrument, the needle seeming somehow much too long.

  When the drug was drawn up, Rose then looked down at the unconscious stranger and murmured, "Where do I inject?"

  Deciding that vaccinations ordinarily went into the arm, she cleaned a small patch on the hard muscle just at the shoulder and sank the needle in.

  He didn't react.

  Dear God, Rose prayed as she slowly depressed the plunger, let this be the right amount.

  When she was done, she sat back and studied him. The stranger slept deeply—too deeply, she thought. And then she noticed what a clean, handsome profile he had.

  She felt the pulse at his neck. It didn't feel right. It was as though his heart were struggling; each beat felt like a desperate plea for help.

  Reaching out, Rose stroked the black hair matted to his forehead. "Poor man," she said softly, "whatever did you do to deserve such inhuman treatment?"

  She withdrew into silence, her blue eyes settling upon the dark head. Time came to a halt; the air grew moist and heavy with the smell of rich earth and exotic blossoms. Something skittered along the skylight. The sun moved behind a tall eucalyptus, softening the hues and shadows in the greenhouse. The two women, white and African, sat while the injured stranger slept between them.

  DURING HER LONG vigil at the sleeping man's side Rose was overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and utter uselessness. With the body of this poor man stretched before her, his life beating slowly away, she loathed her weakness and inability to do anything.

  Near suns
et Njeri reminded her mistress of the coming dark. Rose was terrified of the night and always took care to be home before daylight faded. But now she was reluctant to go.

  She laid a hand on the burning cheek and thought: You will probably die in here sometime during the night, alone, in pain, and with no one to comfort you.

  But the dark did frighten her, and so at last Rose was compelled to leave the greenhouse. After making sure he was as warm and comfortable as possible, she paused at the door to look back at the pathetic form sleeping in the gloom.

  She thought of her tapestry. It was all she had to show for her life. And thinking of it, for the first time Rose despised herself.

  SHE COULDN'T SLEEP.

  After slipping into the house unseen, to avoid running into Mona, Rose had gone straight to her bedroom, where she now sat in the light of a hurricane lamp, gazing out the window at the dark forest.

  Unable to bear the silence, she turned on her radio, hoping for some music, but instead she heard the voice of a late-night news broadcaster. She quickly turned the volume down and listened to the faint report: "Two of the Italian prisoners who escaped from the Nanyuki camp have been found. The third is still at large. He has been identified as General Carlo Nobili, the duca d'Alessandro."

  So he had a name now.

  Rose thought of him lying in the cold greenhouse, slowly dying. Would he waken, she wondered, and be terrified in his last moments of life? She thought of the wounds on his back—the old ones and the new—that spoke volumes of his cruel treatment in the camp. No wonder he escaped. Perhaps the murdered guard deserved to die.

  Then she thought: I should have done more for him. But what? What could I have done?

  Rose started to cry.

  She buried her face in her hands and wept. The bedroom door opened, and a ribbon of hallway light fell across the carpet as Njeri, who had never seen her mistress cry, looked in, baffled and afraid.

  Rose turned and looked at her maid. "Why am I so useless?" she cried. "Why am I such a useless, ridiculous woman? Anyone else might have saved that poor man! If Grace had been here instead of in Nairobi! She would have known what to—" Rose stared at her maid. "Grace!" she cried. "Of course!"