He climbed down and knocked the dust from his trousers. "I slept on the train. I would love some tea."
Mona said, "Good!" and preceded him up the steps to the kitchen door.
As they entered, Mona said, "I've had to have another talk with Solomon. I caught him warming the toast in front of the fire this morning."
"What is wrong with that?"
"He was holding the toast between his toes!"
David laughed. Mona, also laughing, was about to say something more when she was startled by the sudden appearance of someone standing in the doorway of the dining room.
"Geoff!" she said. "I didn't see your car."
"Father dropped me off. He's gone down to the mission to see Aunt Grace."
"Is Ilse with you? We were about to have tea."
Geoffrey cast a quick, disapproving look at David, then said, "I'm afraid this isn't a social call. We need to talk in private, Mona. I've some rather upsetting news to tell you."
"What is it?"
He looked again, significantly, at David, who quickly said, "I will have that tea later, Mona. I must go down and see my mother and Wanjiru."
"David"—she reached out and touched his arm—"please do come back and have lunch with me."
"Yes," he said. "We'll need to go over the books."
"Really, Mona," Geoffrey said when David had gone, "I don't understand why you let that boy of yours call you by your first name."
"Don't be such a toffee nose, Geoffrey," she said, marveling once again to think that she had once considered marrying this stuffy man! "As I've told you before, David Mathenge is not a 'boy'; he is my manager. And he is my friend. Now, what's the upsetting news?"
"Have you turned on the wireless this morning?"
"Geoffrey, I was up before dawn and spent the entire morning down at the processing sheds. Then I had to go and collect David at the train station. No, I haven't listened to the wireless. What is it?"
Geoffrey would have liked to say something about that, that Mona could easily have sent someone else to fetch David, that it would, in fact, have been more proper for her to do so, but Geoffrey, knowing it was useless to argue with her, turned to the reason for his unexpected visit. "The governor has declared a state of emergency in Kenya."
"What?"
"Late last night, in an effort to put an end to Mau Mau, Kenyatta and several of his cronies were arrested."
"But there's no proof that Kenyatta is behind Mau Mau! Only two months ago he publicly denounced these acts of terrorism!"
"Well, they've got to be stopped somehow, and I'll wager everything I have that with old Jomo behind bars and unable to get messages out, the violence will cease."
Mona turned away, her hand pressed to her forehead. "What does it mean, a state of emergency?"
"It means that until the gangsters come out of the forest and give themselves up, we'll be living under special police conditions."
She walked to the tile counter where a yellow plastic radio stood between an electric coffeepot and an electric orange squeezer. Since 1919, when it was built, the kitchen of Bellatu had undergone several renovations, the latest having been two years ago, when a modern gas stove had finally replaced the old Dover wood burner.
Mona turned the radio on, and "Your Cheatin' Heart" filled the air. Turning the dial, she briefly picked up a broadcast from faraway Cairo. Then she found the Nairobi station.
"There is no doubt that Kenya is facing trouble," said the voice of the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, "but I appeal to all citizens to keep calm and be careful not to create alarm by passing on rumors. I signed a proclamation of a State of Emergency throughout the Colony, a grave step that was taken most unwillingly and with great reluctance by the Government of Kenya. But there was no alternative in face of the mounting lawlessness, violence, and disorder in a part of the Colony. This state of affairs has developed as a result of the activities of the Mau Mau movement. In order to restore law and order and to allow peaceful and loyal people of all races to go about their business in safety, the government has made emergency regulations to enable it to take into custody certain persons who in its opinion constitute danger to public order."
Mona looked at Geoffrey. "What does he mean, certain persons?"
"For this purpose," Sir Evelyn went on, "there has been a redistribution of police and military forces, and in addition, a British battalion is being brought in by air to Nairobi, the first troops having arrived last night. HMS Kenya will also arrive at Mombasa in the course of today."
"Troops!" she said, turning off the radio. "Is all that really necessary? I had no idea things were so bad!"
"They weren't at first. Mau Mau, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, began, as you know, with a few fringe lunatics, Nairobi wild boys, unemployed and broke, who took to hiding in the forest and making occasional, arbitrary strikes, mostly for food and money. An African policeman or two came up missing; cattle were stolen; someone's hut was burned down. But it seems that more and more dissatisfied young natives are joining them, and it's escalating. I'm afraid it's caught us all a bit off guard."
Mona felt suddenly cold. She went to the stove and set the kettle on to boil. Mau Mau was a term she had first heard about two years ago, when few people outside the Secret Service paid much attention to it. And then incidents began occurring: police headquarters burglarized and ammunition stolen; someone's plot of maize set ablaze; threatening notices appearing mysteriously all over Nairobi. Last month a gang of Africans had raided the Catholic mission, locked the missionaries in a room, and made off with cash and a shotgun. A week later the body of a strangled dog was found hanging in Majengo market as a warning from Mau Mau to all white settlers. Finally, just two weeks ago, a senior tribal chief, a man much respected by both Africans and whites, had been assassinated in broad daylight.
Geoffrey came all the way into the kitchen, folded his arms, and leaned against the sink. "The final straw," he said quietly, "occurred early this morning. You know Abel Kamau, the dairyman up at Mweiga?"
Mona nodded. Abel Kamau was one of those African soldiers who had returned from the war with European wives. The Kamaus had settled just a few miles north of Bellatu, to live a quiet, peaceful existence. They were one of the very few interracial couples in Kenya and were so ostracized by everyone, shunned by Africans and whites, cast out from both his family and hers, that they had few friends and led a lonely existence. Mona had met them and had found them to be congenial, likable people. They had a four-year-old son.
"They were attacked in their beds during the night," Geoffrey said. "Massacred. Abel and his wife were barely recognizable, the police said, because of the numerous panga slashes."
Mona reached for a chair. "My God. And the boy?"
"He's alive, but they don't think he'll live. The thugs gouged his eyes out."
"Dear God, why?"
"They use eyes in their oathing ceremonies." Geoffrey took the chair opposite Mona and sat at the table. "They were a Mau Mau target because they had broken racial taboos. As you know, it's as offensive to an African as it is to whites to intermarry. Abel Kamau's big crime was that he was married to a white woman and also that he was a loyalist. The ones Mau Mau seem to be targeting, besides a few isolated whites, are Africans who support the colonial government."
The kettle was whistling. Mona looked at it but didn't move. "What on earth was that poor little boy's crime?" she murmured.
"His father had slept with a white woman."
Mona finally got up from the table and went through the motions of making tea. Her joy of that morning, the result of David's return, had died. "Do the police have any idea who did it?"
"They know exactly who did it. Kamau's houseboy, Chege."
Mona spun around. "That's not possible! Chege is a sweet and kindly old man who wouldn't hurt a fly! Why, he was Abel's father's best friend!"
"Yes, that's the monstrous part of it all. Mau Mau are starting to work through people who are close t
o their targets."
"But how can they? Chege was devoted to Abel and his wife!"
"Love and devotion, Mona, are nothing compared with the power of a Mau Mau oath."
She knew about the oaths, had heard about them all her life. Oathing was what bound a Kikuyu to his word; it was an integral part of tribal social structure and was so steeped in ancestral superstition and taboos that few Kikuyu could go against an oath once taken. "But how could they make someone take an oath against his will and then make him commit a hideous crime?"
"They're forcing people through the oath. They terrorize them into taking it. Chege was most likely abducted, carted off into the forest, forced through an obscene ritual, and then released."
"But how could they be sure he would carry out their orders?"
"Mau Mau can be certain of anyone they've forced to take an oath, Mona. If the oath itself doesn't terrify the poor bastard into carrying out their demands, then the threat of execution by them does."
Mona put the teapot, cups, sugar, and milk on a tray and carried it out of the kitchen. She found Ilse, Geoffrey's wife, sitting in the living room, looking at a Sears catalog advertisement for "handbags for the pigtail and Coke crowd." Ilse had gotten quite fat in her seven years of marriage to Geoffrey and was even heavier now because of pregnancy.
"Dear me," she said, putting the catalog aside, "such badness! And to think that it so near to us has happened!"
When Mona saw how pale and shaken Ilse was, she remembered that the Kamau homestead was less than a mile from Kilima Simba.
Deep in thought, Mona stirred her tea. Although she had never heard Kenyatta speak, she had read excerpts of his speeches in the newspaper. He was the leader of the Kenya African Union, the powerful and growing political organization which, Kenyatta had declared, was dedicated to ending the color bar in Kenya and to obtaining more land, more education, more leadership for Africans, with the ultimate goal being self-government. "We are looking for one thing," the charismatic Jomo had said, "and that is peace."
Despite Kenyatta's repeated denunciations of Mau Mau, the government had nonetheless decided that he and the KAU were behind the terrorism and therefore had had him arrested. A dangerous move, Mona thought, and possibly a very foolish one.
"There's nothing to worry about, Mona," Geoffrey said. "This Mau Mau business will fall apart without their leaders. Baring's promised that Kenyatta will never again be a free man. And to show the terrorists that we mean business, we've got the equivalent of six battalions currently positioned throughout the province, in addition to the three Kenya battalions of the King's African Rifles, a Ugandan battalion operating in the Rift, and two companies of Tanganyika battalions. Last night the Lancashire Fusiliers were flown down from the canal. They landed at the Royal Air Force station at Eastleigh and have been set up in Nairobi as a command reserve. We're also creating a home guard, making use of African ex-soldiers who fought in the war and who are loyal. I tell you, Mona, I for one am glad to see that we're finally showing them a firm hand. We're demonstrating to the wogs and to the world that we can defend this colony on a moment's notice, by the air and by sea."
"I wonder..." Mona said. She was staring out the large living room window, which admitted a glorious day that shed equatorial sunlight on Bellatu's somber, elegant old furniture. Bright pink and orange bougainvillaea framed the deep veranda, rows of green coffee trees undulated over a gently hilly landscape, and in the distance, purple and snowcapped, Mount Kenya stood in cloudless majesty. "I wonder, Geoffrey, if the governor's move isn't, in fact, an error. By bringing in such military force, he is as much as admitting to the world, and to Mau Mau, that the white settler government of Kenya is incapable of defending the colony alone."
"Good God, Mona, you talk as if you wanted the wogs to run the country!"
"I don't think their desire for self-rule is unreasonable."
"Well, I'll agree with you in part. I've been screaming for self-rule for years, you know that. There's no bloody sense in our having to answer to Whitehall any longer. But I mean white self-rule."
"Geoffrey, there are forty thousand of us in this country and six million Africans! It must be evident to you and everyone by now that the Rhodesian apartheid model will never work here in Kenya. We don't have that right."
"You're wrong, Mona. We do have the right. Don't forget what miracles our tiny minority has performed in East Africa. The British taxpayer, Mona, the hardest hit after the war, has poured great sums of money into this colony, money which has helped the Africans! When one considers everything we've done for them, actually brought them out of the Stone Age, and how we've taken care of them all these years, it's appalling that the current situation has been allowed to develop. If you ask me, Mona, we were fools not to accept Montgomery's plan when we had the chance."
"What plan was that?"
"Back in 'forty-eight Field Marshal Montgomery introduced a plan to establish military bases here in Kenya because he had foreseen exactly the dissension we have today. Because we didn't listen to him, the Africans have played right into Communist hands, and that is exactly what we are facing now. The whole of Mau Mau, I tell you, is based on Communist lines."
"Oh, Geoffrey," Mona said impatiently, "I still say it is their country as much as it is ours, and we shouldn't discount the needs and feelings of six million people."
Geoffrey gave Mona a wry smile. "Do you really think they are capable of self-rule?" He laughed. "I can hear the wogs now! 'Give us the job and we'll finish the tools!'"
"You're being unfair."
"And I say they're being bloody ungrateful! But what can you expect? The Kikuyu language doesn't even have a word for 'thank you.' We had to teach it to them."
Geoffrey stood abruptly. He hated these arguments with Mona. She infuriated him. Everything about her annoyed him: her political views; the way she lived—especially the way she lived.
Mona was a good-looking woman, he thought, could be quite stunning, in fact, if she didn't insist on parading about like an ordinary farm woman. She had inherited a rather fetching combination, in his opinion, of her mother's beauty and her father's dark good looks, and she should be capitalizing on it with better clothes and a trip now and then to the hairdresser. But Mona insisted on drawing her long black hair into a plain ponytail and wearing men's shirts. She hadn't an ounce of style, he thought, spending her days in the coffee fields, working alongside her Africans. Mona seemed to have inherited none of her parents' gentility. The days of champagne and polo parties were, sadly, long gone; they seemed to have died with Valentine. The upstairs guest rooms, Geoffrey knew, had been closed up long ago. Limousines no longer pulled up the drive; gay celebrations had ceased to fill these somber rooms. The only visitors Mona entertained were men from the Coffee Board, growers like herself, with whom she smoked cigarettes and drank brandy and discussed world market prices. What Mona needed was a man to remind her of the woman she was. And Geoffrey decided he was that man.
A pang of conscience made him look at his wife, who sat in a cotton maternity smock, fat and complacent, her sole interest in life their children. Ilse had let herself go. After four babies and now pregnant again with the fifth, she had lost all sexual desirability. She was a good mother, Geoffrey admitted. But as a bed partner she had lost her appeal long ago. What had he been thinking to marry her because she had been persecuted and he had felt sorry for her? Instead, he should have come home to Mona!
It was getting more and more difficult for him to curb his desire for Mona. It amazed him that she could lead such a celibate life. It was unnatural. Surely she, too, longed for intimacy with a man. Yet, amazingly, there were no men in her life other than strictly business contacts. Geoffrey was certain that there must be a yearning in her somewhere, that at night, alone in her bed, she must be reminded of her sterile life. Mona must be ripe, Geoffrey decided, for the right man to come along. One of these days, Geoffrey promised himself, or one of these nights he was going to give in to his
lust and come to Bellatu and find her alone. And she would be just as ready for him as he was for her.
"Anyway," he said as he strode to the window, his body, still lean at forty, silhouetted against the October sunshine. "I mean to show the Mau Mau gangsters that I am not intimidated by them. With me it will be business as usual, despite what the bad press has done for it. Once this Mau Mau nonsense has died down, and it will, I promise you that, then I shall have my customers again."
Geoffrey was referring to his embryonic tour agency, which he had started after being released from the army. His prophecy that the war would spark a new age in tourism had come true. All over the world soldiers returning home had regaled their families with stories of the exotic places they had seen: Paris; Rome; Egypt; Hawaii; the South Pacific. These discoveries, along with the recent introduction of commercial jet travel, which drastically reduced traveling time, had triggered a sudden worldwide fad for sight-seeing. The Donald Tour Agency, which operated out of Geoffrey Donald's living room at Kilima Simba, was still in its early, struggling stage, Kenya not yet implanted in the minds of would-be holiday travelers. So far Geoffrey only took out hunting safaris, but his intention was to establish something altogether new: photographic safaris.
"I'm working on a new advertising campaign," he said as he returned to his tea and changed the subject with, in Mona's opinion, maddening agility. "I'm having a brochure drafted, with photos of lions and giraffes and natives and a reassurance that the Manchester laborer can enjoy two weeks of African adventure in guaranteed safety and comfort. Now that we've got these wildlife preserves, thanks to the diligent work of Aunt Grace, we might as well cash in on them."
"But even with our wildlife," Mona said, "I don't see what else Kenya has to offer to the average holidaymaker. One can get tired of just taking snapshots of animals every day."
One of Mona's problems, Geoffrey decided, was that she lacked imagination. "That's going to be part of my new program. The brochure will have pictures of the Nairobi hotels. I'll emphasize the luxury, the cuisine, the nightlife. Now that Nairobi has finally achieved city status, I mean to put it on the world map."
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