As David listened to the applause for Geoffrey Donald's vapid speech, he tried once again, as he had so many times, to analyze and understand, and therefore to figure out, how to rid himself of his growing desire for Mona Treverton.
As a thinking, educated man David Mathenge believed that any difficulty could be overcome and solved through rational, conscientious process. He spoke about it at KAU meetings, urging his comrades not to take the terrorist way out, explaining that, as he had seen with his own eyes in Palestine, such action only provoked a like counteraction, with the result being a never-ending war. "We must have the respect of all the nations of the world," he said repeatedly. "If we are to stand on our own and govern ourselves as other countries do, then it must be as honorable men. Mau Mau is dishonorable. I do not want an uhuru gotten by such means. Mau Mau must not win." It was the only way, he believed, to rid Kenya of an unwanted evil. Therefore, in the same way David hoped to rid himself of his unwanted feelings for Mona.
When had the desire begun? He didn't know. Possibly the birth of this second, unwanted hunger had happened at the time of the death of his love for Wanjiru, six years ago, when she had driven his love for her out of his heart with her sharp voice, her cutting words, her open scorn for his belief in a peaceful revolution. Perhaps, when his heart was suddenly emptied of desire and affection for his wife and left cold and wanting, he had been vulnerable. But why Mona Treverton? he wondered. A woman who was, in fact, his enemy. Why hadn't he turned his affections to any one of the many husbandless women in the village, all of whom would have been anxious to please him and not a few of whom were young and pretty? Why this white woman, who was too pale and skinny by African standards, whom he had once hated, and who lived a life alien to his own and had no real knowledge or comprehension of the Kikuyu way of life?
I could teach her, his traitorous heart whispered.
It was not, however, as simple as that. There were insurmountable obstacles to the outrageous fantasy David entertained.
Kikuyu men who married white women were cast out of the tribe and disinherited because it was taboo for a Kikuyu man to lie down with an uncircumcised woman. He brought shame to himself and to his family; he dishonored his father's name and his ancestors. His mother, David knew, would be devastated if she suspected his feelings for the white woman—a hundred times more so because this particular white woman was among those she had cursed on Christmas Eve nearly thirty-four years ago.
David pounded the steering wheel.
It was all so convoluted! David respected and feared and believed in his mother's thahu. He believed that Mona was truly doomed, as her brother and parents had been. He wanted to save Mona from his mother's curse. But to defy Wachera would be to dishonor himself and revile his ancestors. He would be no better than Mau Mau and therefore not a man worthy to live.
But there was an even greater obstacle to his madness. There was the question of Mona's feelings toward him.
On the day she had hired him as her estate manager, Mona had apologized to him for her cruelty to him when they were children. Her voice had been so sincere, her smile so warm, and she had held out her hand to him—a gesture that would put an African in jail were it to be witnessed— that David's resentment of her and his plans for revenge had been shaken. In the seven years since, she had treated him as a friend and equal. Those occasions in which he was aware of their racial separation were few and far between. But surely, he told himself as he watched the audience break up now that Geoffrey's speech was over, surely that was all David was to Mona: a friend!
Lastly, there was the color bar.
This was what made a mockery of his insane desire for her and what convinced him that Mona would only ever look upon him as a friend, the fact that, quite simply, Kenyan Africans and Kenyan whites never crossed that crucial line.
David started the car and drove closer. He parked, got out, and waited for Mona to finish talking with Geoffrey. There was a great deal of handshaking and congratulating among the whites, while the Africans slowly dispersed and began the long, hot walk to the Norfolk for their free refreshments.
Geoffrey escorted Mona to her car, his hand on her arm, both of them laughing. When he saw David, Geoffrey said in a not too discreet voice, "Really, Mona, don't you think it rather irregular that you let that boy of yours drive your car?"
She stopped and pulled her arm away. "I wish you hadn't said that, Geoff. And I'll thank you not to say anything like that in my presence again."
He watched her go, a cold, smoldering look on his face.
"I'm sorry, David," Mona said quietly. "I'm sorry you heard that."
"He is entitled to his opinion, as long as I am entitled to mine."
She smiled. Then, remembering the reason for his needing the car, she asked what success he had had in Nairobi.
He gazed past her and out across the plains. Mona was wearing the lavender scent again. "None. I found no trace of Wanjiru or anyone who could give me information. I fear now that she is not in Nairobi after all." It was not that David wanted his wife back—she had divorced him; she was free to go—but the children were his, and it was for them, Christopher and Hannah, that he searched.
He was about to say something further when a great roar suddenly filled the sky. Everyone looked up to see four New Zealand jet fighters streak across the blue. They were heading for the Aberdare forest in the north.
"That'll show 'em we mean business!" someone said. "That'll put the fear of God into the Mau Mau bastards!"
A police car appeared on the road, driving at a furious rate, not slowing down for people in the way but only when it drew near to the deputy governor. Before the car had stopped, a white policeman in khaki uniform jumped out and came running with a piece of paper in his hand. Everyone watched as the deputy governor read the dispatch. When he said, "Oh, my God," Geoffrey took the paper and read it.
"What is it?" Mona asked.
"There's been a massacre in the village at Lari! Mau Mau locked the huts and set fire to the roofs! A hundred and seventy-two people were either burned alive or slashed to death with pangas when they tried to escape!"
"When?"
"This morning. No one knows the identities of the attackers...." Geoffrey looked at David.
47
O
N JUNE 14, 1953, FOUR AFRICAN WOMEN WALKED INTO THE dining room of the very posh and elegant Queen Victoria Hotel on Lord Treverton Avenue and sat down at a table spread with Irish linen, china, and silver.
The white patrons in the dining room fell into a stunned silence as the four calmly gave food orders to the shocked African waiter. The women, who wore cotton print dresses and kanga turbans on their heads, requested irio and posho, traditional Kenya dishes, which, of course, the Queen Victoria did not serve.
Recovering from their shock and realizing what this was about, the indignant white customers got up and left. A few minutes later the police arrived. The four women put up a terrific fight, which resulted in the destruction of much china and crystal, flower vases, and the dessert cart. Three were arrested, but one managed to escape, running through the kitchen with her baby bouncing on her back. Before disappearing down the alley and from there into the warrens of Nairobi's crowded African sections, she turned and hurled a rock through one of the Queen Victoria's windows. It had a note tied around it which read, "The soil is ours," and it was signed "Field Marshal Wanjiru Mathenge."
"JAMES, I HAVE already told you, and I mean it! I will not carry a gun." Grace put the revolver back into his hands and walked away.
"Damn it, Grace! Listen to me! We have a desperately bad situation here! All the missions are being hit. You heard what happened to the Scottish mission last week."
Grace pressed her mouth into a stubborn line. Yes, she had heard about it; it had made her sick, and she hadn't slept since. What the Mau Mau terrorists had done to those poor, innocent people! It was even worse than the Lari Massacre back in March. And this strike had taken place in broad
daylight! Mau Mau were getting bolder, their tactics viler.
The government, in Grace's opinion, had made a big mistake in finding Jomo Kenyatta guilty and sentencing him to seven years' hard labor. He should not have been arrested in the first place, to her thinking; there was no proof that he was the force behind Mau Mau. And now, instead of putting a stop to the "freedom" movement, the unjust treatment of Kenyatta had only served to fan the flames. Thousands—jobless and dissolute young desperadoes who had nothing to live for and who cared only for killing and stealing—were fleeing into the forests every day.
The heaviest Mau Mau activity was in the area around Bellatu and Grace Mission. The Royal Air Force was now steadily and systematically bombing the Aberdare forests nearby; Tommies were seen in great numbers, setting up roadblocks, interrogating everyone; all telephones had been taken over by the government, all conversations were screened, and only English was allowed.
Mau Mau was escalating, not just in the number of freedom fighters in the forest but in general Kikuyu sympathy. African children were being taught to sing hymns substituting the word God with Jomo; servants, once loyal and trusted, were becoming the willing or unwilling agents of Mau Mau; white settlers were now asked to lock their house staff out of the house at 6:00 P.M. and not to let them back in until morning. All over, no one knew whom to trust, whom to suspect.
And the atrocities were mounting—on both sides. Loyalist headmen were being murdered daily; the missions attacked; settlers' cattle mutilated; home guards torturing suspects by burning their eardrums with cigarettes. The oath-taking ceremony, which had once been described in the newspapers, was becoming increasingly more savage and obscene—children were now used, and animals—so that such descriptions were no longer printable.
The whole world, it seemed, had gone mad.
"I'm asking you for my sake, Grace," James said as he followed her into the living room. "I won't rest until I know you're protected."
"If I carry a gun, James, it means that I intend to kill someone. I will not kill, James."
"Not even in self-defense?"
"I can take care of myself."
In exasperation he holstered the gun and set it on the table. Absolutely every settler in the province had taken to wearing a gun except for this stubborn, obstinate woman. At sixty-four Grace still carried herself with the determination of the old days, that square-shouldered, stiff-upper-lip willfulness that had been one of the reasons he had fallen in love with her. But she was gray-haired now and wore glasses. In the eyes of Mau Mau, a frail, defenseless white woman!
Mario came in, a little stooped and completely gray after all these years with Memsaab Daktari. He brought a tray of tea and sandwiches and was about to set it on the table when he saw the gun.
"These are bad days, bwana," he said sadly. "Very bad days."
"Mario," said James as he picked up the gun so that the tray could be set down, "we suspect there is an oath giver in this area. Do you have any knowledge of that?"
"No, bwana. I do not believe in oaths. I am a good Christian man."
Yes, thought James darkly. And another prime target for Mau Mau. Was this Grace's defense? An aging houseboy whose devotion to his white mistress could mean his death sentence?
"Memsaab," Mario said, "Daktari Nathan says he will need your help in surgery this afternoon. There are twelve more boys needing to be done."
"Thank you, Mario. Tell him I will be there." Grace sat down next to the radio. "Poor Dr. Nathan. He's doing twenty circumcisions a day now. And I understand the Nairobi hospitals are swamped with cases."
It was all because the tribal circumcisers—witch doctors—had been rounded up and jailed as Mau Mau suspects. Kikuyu parents, frantic to maintain tradition, were turning to local hospitals, where surgeons performed the operation under less than traditional conditions. Only the girls continued to be circumcised in the old way, by Mama Wachera.
Grace turned the radio on. When "Doggie in the Window" came through, she murmured, "Everything is American now."
She shifted the dial. The Nairobi news broadcast reported first on international events—in the United States the Rosenbergs, accused spies, had been executed; the USSR had exploded its first hydrogen bomb—and then the voice of General Erskine, the new head of the East African Command, came on.
First he announced the government ban on the KAU and its restriction on the formation of any African political group. Then he said, "From bitter personal experience, you know more about Mau Mau than I do. I only know that this Evil Creed has led to crimes of the greatest savagery and violence and that respect for law and order must be restored without delay. I have been sent by the War Office and shall get on at once with this task. I shall not be satisfied until every loyal citizen of Kenya can go about his work in peace, safety, and security."
"So," James said quietly, "General Erskine is here. I would say that they have sent in the big guns."
AFTER THE BROADCAST James and Grace left her house and followed one of the paved lanes that crisscrossed the thirty acres of Grace Mission. This location had been decided on as being the best for emergency settler meetings. The mission was central to most farms, and one of the schoolrooms could accommodate the large crowd that always attended. When they arrived, they found Tim Hopkins standing on a box in front of the blackboard, calling for attention.
It was uncomfortably hot in the classroom, even with all the windows open. Nearly a hundred angry and frightened settlers, with gun holsters on their hips and rifles in their hands, sweated in heat that had oppressed the colony unabatedly since March. The tension in the air was due to more than just Mau Mau: with the continuing drought there was a prediction of ninety-five percent crop failure.
"Can we have it quiet, please?" Tim called, but to no effect.
Everyone, it seemed, was talking at once. Hugo Kempler, a rancher from Nanyuki, was telling Alice Hopkins about his thirty-two cows that had been poisoned by Mau Mau. "Autopsy found arsenic in their maize."
Alice, in turn, told of the disappearance of her entire labor force. "Sixty of them, all gone off in one night. That was last week, and not a one has come back. My sisal and pyrethrum are going unharvested. If I don't find labor soon, my entire farm will go bust."
Finally, because he was unheard over the din, her brother pulled out his gun and fired it into the air. The crowd was instantly silenced.
"Now listen!" he shouted, wiping his perspiring face with a handkerchief. "We've got to do something! There's an oath giver in this area, and we have to find him! And fast!"
A rumble of agreement went through the crowd. Mrs. Langley, who had come out to Kenya with her husband in 1947 upon India's independence, stood up in her prim cotton dress and gun holster and said, "We've tried talking to our chaps, but we get nowhere. We try bribes or threats, but they just won't talk."
Heads nodded; murmurs went around. They all knew it was impossible to get the Kikuyu to talk about Mau Mau. Although many Africans were sympathizers, many were not, but they kept silent out of fear. Only last month a man who had given evidence in Nairobi in a special Mau Mau court was later seen being forced into a car by four men and hadn't been seen since. Even those who testified under police interrogation and signed statements did not then later show up in court and were unlikely ever to be heard from again.
Mr. Langley stood up next to his wife. A small, weathered man, he had left India because, like hundreds of others who had swarmed to Kenya in 1947, he could not abide living under "native" rule. "I lost my best headman two nights ago," he said. "He was locked inside his hut and burned alive with his wife and two children. And then all my dogs were poisoned." He paused. There were tears in his eyes. "We hadn't been hit until then. It was done by our own chaps, I'm sure of it. They'd been loyal until they were forced to take the oath."
Fear stood out on every settler face. The power of the oath, once taken, was their biggest, most insidious threat. Devoted houseboys, treated for years like family, could overni
ght be made into assassins. Even if the oath was forced upon him, once a Kikuyu had eaten the raw dog flesh and drunk the cup of blood, he could not disobey a command from Mau Mau.
"The trouble is," Tim said, "we have to find a better way to fight these monsters. How can you fight an enemy that never shows itself? We all know how it is for Mau Mau. They live in hidden camps in the forest, they're supplied with food and clothing and medical supplies by women who smuggle them all in, and they're provided with information on the movements of the security forces. They have an incredible network of communication—using hollow trees as letter boxes! Only last week they were successful in staging a boycott of Nairobi buses, and they've stopped Africans from buying European cigarettes and beer. The wogs are far more impressed by fear of Mau Mau than by any desire to restore law and order!"
Everyone started talking again, and Tim had to shoot his pistol once more. "What we've got to do," he shouted, "is find out who the oath givers are! That's our priority. Then we have to find the secret underground. Find out who's smuggling guns and ammunition to Mau Mau. And once that's done, cut the bloody lines to them and starve them out of the bloody forest!"
Mona, who stood at the rear of the classroom with Geoffrey, stared at Tim Hopkins. She had never seen him like this. His face was red; his eyes blazed. He was exploding with anger and bloodlust. In the past few months Tim had become what the people called a "Kenya cowboy," a self-appointed vigilante with a contingent of riders, a sort of farmers' cavalry, whose purpose was to aid isolated farms. Such private forces were manned mostly by the sons of settlers, European boys born in Kenya who were fighting to hold on to land that they believed was as much theirs as the Africans'. Young men like Tim resented the word native in reference to the black tribes, arguing that Kenya-born whites were just as "native" and had just as much right to ownership of this country. While some of these cowboys were compelled by noble purpose and acted in a civilized way, many of them were just as sadistic and barbaric as Mau Mau. They were known for arbitrarily stopping Africans and giving them thorough beatings with little or no cause. Tim, Mona prayed, would not turn into one such as they.
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