Her supper had been laid out on the kitchen table by Solomon. Mona said good night to her maids and houseboys and locked the door behind them. Taking a flashlight, David went upstairs and all over the house, making sure that windows and doors were locked, that balconies and verandas weren't harboring anyone. Then he returned to the kitchen and prepared to leave.
He paused at the door and looked at Mona.
"I'm frightened," she said quietly.
"I know."
"It's dark out. And it's a long way to your cottage. Mau Mau could be out there—"
"I have no choice, Mona. I have to go. It is past curfew. I will go quickly."
"David, wait." She reached into her skirt pocket. "I found this in my letter box this morning."
He read the note. It contained two words: "Nigger lover."
"Who could have done it?" she said, glancing at the closed curtains over the kitchen windows and feeling the dark night that crouched on the other side. For as long as she lived Mona would never forget the sight of Mrs. Langly with the Mau Mau spear through her stomach, Father Vittorio running and screaming, his cassock aflame, and David, in the garage, falling beneath kicks and blows.
"I'm afraid you and I are in a unique position, Mona," he said darkly. "Instead of having just one enemy, both sides hate us. We are caught in the middle of something that is not of our doing and over which we have no control."
Mona held her breath. David was coming dangerously close to rousing the unspoken thing that slept between them. In the past two weeks they had worked hard together around the estate, uprooting the dead coffee trees, planting new seedlings, rarely speaking except on farm matters, and then parting to go to their separate homes before night fell. They had existed in a kind of hermetically sealed world, a sterile place where Mau Mau was unheard of, where hatred and love were locked outside. But this afternoon they had had to address the issue of Bellatu's serious financial losses. And they had worked past the curfew hour.
Now they were trapped. Night had caught them.
Mona had an idea who had written the note. She suspected a hotheaded settler son named Brian who had once been arrested for mistreating one of his African cattle boys. Brian had slung a rope through the man's pierced earlobes and then had galloped off on his horse while holding the other end of the rope so that the poor man had had to run behind.
"Why has it come to this, David?" she whispered. "What have we done to deserve this?"
He looked long at her, his eyes sad, his face troubled. Then he reached for the doorknob.
"Don't go," she said.
"I have to."
"Mau Mau might be out there, waiting for you. Or a vengeful white boy.
"I can't stay here."
"Why not? You would be safe here."
He shook his head. "You know why I cannot stay, Mona." His voice was soft, barely heard above the whispering rain. "It is one thing to be with you in daylight, with other people around, doing farm work, but it would be something altogether different for me to be in this house alone with you at night."
She stared across the room at him. Her heart raced.
"Mona," he said in a tight voice, "you and I can never be. Perhaps in another place, at another time, among people who are tolerant. But we are here in Kenya in the midst of a shameful racial war. We must not take that final, irreversible step because once it is taken, we can never cross back to the side of guiltlessness and safety."
"Is it so wrong, the way we feel?"
"For you and me, yes."
He unlocked the door and was about to turn the knob when a crash came from the direction of the living room.
Mona's eyes widened in fear.
"Give me your gun!" David whispered. Then he said, "Stay here." But she followed him as he walked slowly from the kitchen through the dark dining room. At the doorway to the living room he paused, Mona close behind him, and looked around.
No lamps had been lit. The only light came from the strong fire in the fireplace. The hearth was illuminated, revealing brass coal hods, andirons, intricate brickwork, an elephant's foot holding a poker, and the three leather sofas facing the fire. But there the light dwindled. It was scattered among mahogany tables, flickering on a poorly defined periphery. Things seemed to move with the firelight: magazines; ashtrays; an antelope's foot that was a cigarette lighter. And then beyond inky shadows hugged the walls, hiding bookcases and other doorways. Occasionally a mounted animal head was caught in passing glow; the staring glass eyes of an oryx or gazelle glinted.
David crept forward, close to the wall. When he reached the velvet drapes that covered the large windows facing Mount Kenya, he stopped, raised the gun, and parted the drape. Mona, behind him, peered over his shoulder.
The veranda was dark and rain-swept. A single bulb over the steps cast a misty circle of yellow light upon wicker furniture, potted palms, and red and lavender bougainvillaea petals.
David and Mona saw the shards of broken pottery, the scattered soil, the azalea tree lying on the veranda floor. A few feet away they saw what had knocked it over: a small, clumsy shape rooting curiously among the potted plants.
"A hedgehog!" Mona said.
"No doubt seeking shelter from the rain."
David turned to Mona, laughing. She, too, laughed, nervously, in relief.
Then their smiles faded, and they stared at each other in the intimate half glow at the edge of the firelight.
"I want you to promise me," David said quietly after a moment, "that you will move out of this house tomorrow and go and stay with your aunt Grace. Tim Hopkins is with her; you will be safer there than here. Do you promise me, Mona?"
"Yes."
He fell silent again, his eyes searching her face, following the line of her hair, her neck, shoulders. "It's not safe for you to be alone," he said at last, thinking of the note. "Someone other than Mau Mau has threatened you now."
"And you."
"Yes..."
David brought his hand up and gently laid it on her cheek. "I have wondered so many times," he said, "what your skin feels like. So soft..."
She closed her eyes. His hand was hard and calloused. Its touch made her feel faint. She felt her breath catch in her throat, the sudden straining of her heart.
"Mona," he breathed.
She reached up and touched his cheek with her fingertip. She traced the lines of his face, from his nose down to the corner of his lips, the furrow between his eyebrows, the creases at the edge of his eyes.
David's hand moved to the back of her head. He drove his fingers into her hair. He bent to kiss her but hesitated. When their lips did meet, it was tentatively, as if taking a first, uncertain step. Then she put her arms around his neck, and she encouraged the kiss, guiding him, showing him how it was done. Their bodies came together in the flickering fire's glow.
After a moment David drew back and undid the buttons of her blouse. He marveled at Mona's small white breasts, which his hands covered completely. She parted his shirt and laid her palms flat on his chest. When David was naked, Mona saw the legacy of his Masai ancestry—in the finely sculpted buttocks and strong, lean thighs.
David picked her up and laid her down in front of the fire. He explored her body. He touched her. Mona responded because she had never known the irua knife.
He placed his mouth over hers again, and she arched her body up to receive him. They lay in the dancing light of the fire, black skin against white.
MONA WOKE SUDDENLY, wondering what had wakened her. She turned to the man next to her in bed—David, sleeping soundly. How long had she slept? She stretched. She had never felt so good. She had never been so happy.
They had made love several times, each better than the last. David had been taught the arts and skills of his warrior forefathers; Mona had delighted him with her intense, unexpected responses.
"Mona!" came a voice from downstairs.
She sat up. That was what had wakened her! Someone coming into the house!
; It was Geoffrey. He was moving about downstairs and calling her name.
Mona jumped out of bed and pulled on a dressing gown. Glancing back at David to be sure he still slept, she went out into the hall and closed the door.
She met Geoffrey in the living room, where a few red coals still glowed in the fireplace. "What on earth are you doing here, Geoffrey?"
"Christ, Mona! You took ten years off my life! When I found your kitchen door unlocked, I didn't know what to think!"
She put her hand over her mouth. She and David had left the house open!
"What are you doing here?" she asked again, noticing that Geoffrey's mackintosh was drenched, that rain dripped off the brim of his hat. He was carrying a rifle, and hovering in the doorway to the dining room were two soldiers of the Kenya Police Reserve.
"A routine patrol during the night found a dead cat hanging on the gate to Bellatu. You know what that means."
Mona knew what it meant. It was a Mau Mau signal that the inhabitants within were going to be the next victims.
"So we're conducting a general roundup of all wogs in the area. But when I got to David Mathenge's cottage and discovered he wasn't home, in fact, that it looked like he hadn't been home all night, I decided to come up here to ask you if you knew where he was."
Mona clutched the dressing gown over her breasts. The house was abominably cold.
"What time did he leave here last night, Mona?"
Last night? "What time is it, Geoffrey?"
"It's nearly dawn. I've got several patrols out searching for him. I've always suspected that boy of being a Mau Mau sympathizer. He might even be the oath giver we've been looking for."
"Don't be so ridiculous. And would you please send those men outside? I'm not dressed."
Geoffrey gave the askaris an order in Swahili, and when they were gone, he said, "Do you know where David Mathenge is?"
"He had nothing to do with the dead cat."
"How do you know that?"
"I just know it, that's all."
"I don't understand how you can trust him so blindly. What sort of hold does David Mathenge have over you anyway?"
"I know he's innocent."
"Well, I want to take him in for questioning. It's time he was detained. You've stood up for him too long. Now tell me, what time did he leave last night?"
Mona didn't reply.
"Do you know where he went? Do you know where he is right now?"
She chewed her lip.
"If you don't tell me, we'll find him anyway, and it won't go too well for him under questioning, I can guarantee that. He's broken the curfew law."
"That's not David's fault. I'm responsible for that."
"What do you mean?"
Mona tried to think. If David was suspected of having a hand in the dead cat business, then he would be tortured under interrogation. But if she spoke up for him and proved he couldn't have done it because he was with her all night, then she would be confessing to what they had done.
Before Mona could make a decision, Geoffrey said, "What the devil!" and she turned around to see David in the doorway.
He was wearing only trousers and was holding a pistol. "I heard voices, Mona," he said. "I thought you were in trouble."
Geoffrey was too shocked to speak.
Mona went to David and put her hand on his arm. "We left the kitchen door open, David. Geoffrey came to tell me that a cat was hung on my gate during the night. He thought you had done it."
She looked at Geoffrey. "But David couldn't have done it," she said, "because he was here with me all night."
Several looks marched across Geoffrey's face before he was able to speak. "So," he said, walking up to Mona, "I had a suspicion about this. But I couldn't be sure. After all, I told myself that Mona certainly wouldn't sink so low."
"You had better go, Geoffrey. This is none of your concern."
"I'll say it isn't! I want nothing to do with this! My God, Mona!" he cried. "Sleeping with a nigger!"
She slapped him hard across the face.
"Get out," she said in a deadly tone. "Get out or I'll use this gun on you. And never come to my house again."
He opened his mouth to say something. Then he gave David a venomous, threatening look, turned on his heel, and marched out.
When they heard the kitchen door slam, Mona covered her face with her hands and went into David's embrace. "I'm so sorry!" she cried. "He's such a hateful person! It's all my fault, David!"
"No," he said quietly, stroking her hair. He fixed his eyes on the cracks of milky light coming through the drapes. It was dawn. "It is no one's fault, Mona. We are simply the victims of forces beyond our understanding." He stepped back and held her by the arms. "Mona, look at me and listen to what I have to say. This is not a world we can live in; our love would not survive. Someday they will have you looking at me and thinking, nigger, or I shall look at you and think, white bitch. And our beautiful love will be destroyed."
He spoke passionately. "There must be a future in which we can live together and love each other freely and without fear. We must be able to live as husband and wife, Mona, not creeping about in the cover of night. I love you with all my heart, more than I have ever loved anyone, and yet while that man was insulting you, I was unable to defend you! I cannot be stripped of my manhood, Mona, for then I might as well be dead! I can see now that I have been wrong all this time, that the only way to make the future ours is to fight for it! I can no longer be the white man's 'boy'!"
She looked up at him, mesmerized, terrified.
"I am going to do now what I should have done long ago, Mona. And I do it for us. Just remember that I love you. It may be a long time before you see me again, but you will be with me in my heart. And if you are ever afraid or in danger, and you need to contact me, go to my mother. She will know what to do."
"Where are you going, David?" she whispered.
"I am going into the forest, Mona. I am going to join Mau Mau."
49
T
HIS WAS GOING TO BE THE BIGGEST MAU MAU STRIKE TO date. And Field Marshal Wanjiru Mathenge was going to lead it. As she counted the last of the dynamite sticks which had been smuggled to her, she felt the heady rush of pulse in her brain, tasted the bite of fear and excitement. It was the same exhilaration she felt whenever she went into the forest, smuggling guns, leaving food and communications in hollow trees for the freedom fighters. She was giddy with anticipation of the big strike she was about to lead: the bombing of the Norfolk Hotel.
There was to be a meeting there this afternoon. The governor and General Erskine had called a general council of white settlers in an effort to plan a new, major offensive against Mau Mau. One of Wanjiru's lieutenants, a beautiful young Meru woman named Sybill, had slept with one of the governor's aides. He had unsuspectingly told her about the secret meeting.
Things were happening so quickly now! Mau Mau had stepped up its fight. The war was expanding to incredible proportions. Wanjiru knew it was because there was a new leader in the forest, a man who had appeared suddenly one day in July. Wanjiru had never seen him—she took her orders from someone under him—and his true identity was known only to Mau Mau high command. To Wanjiru and the rest of the freedom fighters, and to the Europeans as well, he was known as Leopard. Whoever he was, wherever he had come from, Wanjiru admired him. Since his joining up with the forest armies, Mau Mau had launched a massive push against the whites. Leopard had brought to Mau Mau new tactics, new ways of fighting; he had a soldier's experience and cunning and seemed to know the internal workings of the British military. The successful strikes against the settlers in these past few months all were his doing, as was today's attack, which had been in the planning stages for weeks. Once pulled off, the bombing of Nairobi's most important hotel with Kenya's leaders inside was going to be a crippling blow to the whites.
This was Wanjiru's first time in Nairobi since the incident at the Queen Victoria Hotel. After she had thrown the rock through
the hotel's window, she had run into the forests and taken part in organizing new camps, making homemade guns out of pipes, supervising the women, and forming secret, underground communications networks. Field Marshal Wanjiru had risen in the Mau Mau ranks and was now considered the most powerful of the women freedom fighters. The British had launched a widespread hunt for her; there was a bounty of five thousand pounds on her head.
She had arrived in Nairobi a week ago, traveling on foot from the Aberdares in disguise. Friends had made for her a Muslim buibui, a black veil that covered her entire body, leaving only a slit for the eyes. She had brought Christopher and Hannah with her from the secret forest camp, trudging in the hot sun, begging for food in villages, drinking from streams. As she neared the city and had been stopped at roadblocks, she had pretended to speak not English, Swahili, or Kikuyu but a Somali dialect which none of the soldiers knew. She had looked harmless enough—a refugee from the Northern Frontier District, traveling with two babies—so that the soldiers had passed her through. Once she was in the city, however, things were different. She had to have identity papers. It had been arranged for her to become the "wife" of a Mau Mau sympathizer, a Muslim who worked for the Uganda Railway and who therefore was away from his room most of the time. The man had taken Wanjiru to the Labor Office on Lord Treverton Avenue, where she had been fingerprinted, photographed, and issued a passbook under the name of Fatma Hammad.
Now, on this scorching October noon as the hour for the bombing drew near, Wanjiru padded Sybill's stomach with the last of the dynamite.
She had been at it all morning. At sunrise Wanjiru had gone to the market near to Shauri Moyo, the tenement block where the Muslim sympathizer had a dingy room. At the market Wanjiru had met certain women, as had been arranged, and had passed to them, among ears of corn and in calabash gourds, sticks of dynamite with hurried, whispered instructions to meet at the Norfolk at one o'clock.
Green City in the Sun Page 53