Although the attack on the hotel had been Leopard's idea, the means had been Wanjiru's. Men were not free to move about Nairobi. Tommies and Home Guards stopped everyone, conducted searches, made arbitrary arrests. But women, Wanjiru had observed, were less likely to be harassed. Although many were stopped and questioned and taken away in trucks, most were left to go about their interminable shopping, washing, vegetable selling, and childbearing—the never-ending rut of the African woman.
Baskets and gourds could be searched, Wanjiru knew, even the slings that held babies on women's backs. But pregnant bellies were seldom given close scrutiny by soldiers. That was why Wanjiru had instructed her women to pad themselves well and to keep the dynamite close to their bodies, and that was why she now made a last-minute adjustment to the wad of sheets over Sybill's abdomen.
Each woman had been assigned a place. Three days ago Wanjiru had surveyed the hotel grounds, drawn a picture, and penciled in the positions of her saboteurs. While she and Sybill sweated in the ovenlike room of Shauri Moyo, they were gathering there now—eighteen women going unnoticed on the crowded sidewalks, one pausing to pull a splinter from her foot, another to nurse her baby, and so on, until they surrounded the grounds in an inconspicuous and seemingly unrelated circle. Wanjiru was going to be the last one to arrive. At one o'clock she was going to cry, "Mothers of Kenya!" upon which her sisters were to light their sticks and hurl them through the windows of the Norfolk.
A plan of which Leopard had highly approved.
When Sybill was done, she wrapped a bright yellow kanga around her shaved head, hoisted her heavy load of onions onto her back—she was going to spread them out on a cloth in front of the hotel, pretending to sell them— said to Wanjiru, "The soil is ours," and left.
When she was alone, Wanjiru commenced with her own final preparations. As she created a pregnant belly from the remaining pillow, she paused to look at her two babies asleep on the iron bed. Hannah was getting to be a big girl, and Christopher, at eighteen months, was strong and handsome. He looked exactly like his father, David.
With that thought Wanjiru's look darkened. She scorned the man she had divorced and chastised herself for ever having loved him. David Mathenge was a coward, she decided, a man who brought shame to the Children of Mumbi. She hoped he was miserable, working on the white bitch's estate.
As she recalled Mona Treverton, Wanjiru's spirits lifted. Sybill's report on today's secret settler meeting had included a grain of wonderful information: that Dr. Grace Treverton and her niece, Mona, were going to be there.
What will you do then, David? Without your memsaab?
She roused the children. "Come along, my babies. We are going for a walk."
They were languid and moved slowly in the heat. Hannah put on her one dress, which was dirty and torn and too small for her growing body. Christopher wore only a pair of shorts. Both were hungry and barefoot. As she prepared to leave the tenement building, taking up her basket of arrowroots, which she was going to pretend to sell on the sidewalk in front of the Norfolk, Field Marshal Wanjiru Mathenge reaffirmed her resolve. I do this for my babies, for their future, that they may never have to suffer the degradation their parents did.
After the July rains the city had turned green. As Wanjiru walked in the sun, with Christopher on her hip, Hannah walking alongside, holding her hand, the arrowroots weighing down upon her back and the explosives tucked against her belly, she recalled how Nairobi had looked when she had come here sixteen years ago as a girl, to be the first nursing student at the Native Hospital. The city had seemed so much smaller and quieter then. Lines had been clearly drawn; rules of race and society had been simple. The Africans stayed on their squalid estates; the whites had all the rest. In those days, it seemed now to Wanjiru, a kind of innocent peace had enveloped Nairobi; people hadn't paid much attention to the speeches of teenagers like herself and David. In those days the African "knew his place."
When she passed the spot where the great, failed protest had occurred, on the day of the parade when the Treverton son had been killed and David had fled to Uganda, she saw how things had changed. There were bigger buildings, paved roads, more cars and people, and it made her feel almost nostalgic for the passing of the old days.
But they were bad days, she reminded herself as she turned down the road toward the Norfolk. They were wrong days; we fight now for better ones.
She paused on a street corner and looked around. Nairobi had turned into a military camp. Not since the war had so many uniforms been seen on its treelined streets. British Tommies patrolled up and down, ignoring the sullen looks of Africans. And the Home Guards, Kikuyu like herself and just as villainous, in Wanjiru's mind, as the whites, swaggered with their police badges and baton sticks. She didn't know which she feared more.
As she neared the Norfolk, Wanjiru spotted her sisters among the pedestrians. There was Ruth, idly filling her gourd from the street water tap; Damaris had taken off her sling and was readjusting it on her back; Sybill had spread out her cloth of onions; Muthoni sat on the curb, nursing her daughter; and there was old Mama Josephine, who had written a letter to Queen Elizabeth for Kenyatta's release, appealing to the queen's maternal instinct. They blended in with the crowd on the sidewalks, just a few random African women going about their mundane tasks. The soldiers, having examined their passbooks, had dismissed them as insignificant and unworthy of further concern. Wanjiru knew that also at their stations were the rest, women who appeared to have nothing on their minds but who were, in fact, sharply alert and waiting for a deadly signal.
Parked along the street, Wanjiru saw in satisfaction, were the cars of the white settlers, being guarded by bored soldiers. She recognized the one which belonged to Mona Treverton; it was the same car the earl had been murdered in eight years ago. So—they were all inside, like sheep in a pen, waiting for the slaughter. Wanjiru looked up at the clock on the church tower. It was ten minutes to one o'clock.
"Hold there, mama!" came a voice behind her.
She turned and smiled at the pair of Home Guards approaching her. Because she could not afford to be hampered today, Wanjiru was not wearing the protective buibui.
"Your passbook, mama."
She handed it to him.
While the one askari scrutinized her photograph and data, the other, a young Embu man, looked Wanjiru up and down.
"What are you doing here, mama?" the first asked her as he handed back the passbook.
She turned so they could examine her basket of arrowroot. "I'm going to sell them."
"Why here? Why not at the market?"
"Ha! Too much competition at the market! And I need the money! My lazy no-good husband spends all our money on beer!"
"There are easier ways for a good-looking woman like you to make money," the second one said with a smile.
"Sir, I am a devout Muslim. What you say insults me!"
They gave her a thoughtful look. Wanjiru wanted to glance up at the clock but dared not.
"Where are you from?" asked the first.
"Where it says in my passbook."
"Tell me where."
She tried to keep up her smile, her unconcerned manner. Wanjiru had passed through many such brief detainments; she must keep her head through this one. "Up north," she said. "Near the border."
"Today is Friday, mama," said the second soldier, who no longer smiled. "Why are you not at the mosque?"
Wanjiru's heart leaped. She had forgotten! "My husband goes for both of us. Allah understands the need."
The second askari gave her a long, considering look. He narrowed his eyes at her, and Wanjiru, for a panicked instant, thought he looked familiar. But she could not remember from when or where. Then he whispered something to his companion. Wanjiru felt the sweat trickle down her back, thought of the women surrounding the Norfolk. Would one or two become nervous and start the attack before they heard her signal?
She desperately wanted to move on, to get to her position. Yet she had to
appear to be in no hurry and untroubled before the two askaris.
Finally, to her immense relief, they said, "You may go, mama. And stay out of trouble."
"Inshallah," she said with a wave, and turned away.
She looked up at the clock. Four minutes to one. She saw Sybill giving her an edgy look; others, too, were starting to shift uneasily.
Wait, thought Wanjiru. Do not act yet....
Surprise attacks were what Leopard had taught his forest fighters. He had shown them what the British Army had trained him to do and what he had seen terrorists in other countries do. Wanjiru knew it was vital that the women light their sticks at the same time and throw them together. It must be done in one quick move before the soldiers could react. Or else all would be in vain.
She was stopped at the curb by traffic congestion. Wanjiru looked across the street at Sybill, who was getting to her feet and reaching into her dress. It was two minutes to one, and the women all were surreptitiously bringing out their matches. When the minute hand stood at one minute to one o'clock, they were to produce their dynamite and listen for her cry.
The traffic came to a halt. Horns honked; exhaust filled her head. Deciding that there was no time, Wanjiru held tightly on to her children and plunged between the autos and trucks, creating more cacophony of horns and brakes. When she reached the other side, jumping up onto the sidewalk just as a military motorcycle whizzed past, her eyes met Sybill's.
Wanjiru put her hand through the pocket of her dress, where she had made a hole. She felt the dynamite.
She looked up at the clock.
The women waited for the signal.
The hand of the clock moved slowly to the twelve. Wanjiru's pulse rushed in her ears. The sound of traffic and people seemed to recede. All that existed were the hands of the clock and the stick of dynamite in her grasp. Just a few more seconds ... When the hand was straight up on the twelve, she was going to shout, "Mothers of Kenya," and eighteen sticks of dynamite were going to crash into the dining room where the white settlers were gathered.
The last few seconds now ...
"Mama!" called a voice.
She spun around.
The two Home Guards were running across the street.
Wanjiru froze. Should she call the signal or flee?
"What is—" she started to say. But they had their guns out and fired into the air.
The people on the sidewalk scattered instantly. British soldiers came running down the steps of the Norfolk, their Sten guns pointed at Wanjiru. Behind her she felt Sybill jump up and run. The other women, too, were escaping.
"You are Wanjiru Mathenge!" said the Embu askari. "I thought I knew you from somewhere!"
"You are mistaken!" she cried, and realized with a pounding heart where she had seen him before: He had been an orderly at the Native Hospital years ago.
"We'll see about that," said a British corporal, who roughly took her arm. "You're coming in for questioning."
Hannah started to cry. Wanjiru gathered her up and, with the two children in her arms, followed the soldiers into the military truck.
50
M
ONA WROTE:
My dearest David,
It has been four months since you left. I miss you more than I can say. As you asked me to do, I am now living with Aunt Grace, and Bellatu is locked up. The farm, I am sorry to say, is failing. After your disappearance many of the field hands deserted me. A few loyal ones have stayed on, but I think most of the crop shall perish. I received the money from the sale of Bella Hill. It will help for a while; after that I don't know.
I heard on the wireless yesterday that Wanjiru was arrested in Nairobi. They said she was taken to Kamiti Women's Detention Camp and your two children are with her.
I had hoped I would see you in these past four months, my dearest, and would be able to give you these letters myself. But I realize now that we shall not be reunited until this terrible conflict is over. I shall do as you instructed; I shall take these letters to your mother. You said she would know how to contact you.
Do you still believe, David, my love, that there will be a place for us in the new Kenya? I pray that you are right.
Hearing footsteps on the veranda, Mona looked up to see Grace come in, wearing a crisp white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck. "I came to see if you've heard anything about the shipment I'm expecting. Any word?"
"Nothing, Aunt Grace."
Grace frowned. She desperately needed the new Salk polio vaccine from America, and she prayed the shipment hadn't been waylaid by Mau Mau.
"I'm for a cuppa," Grace said. "How about you?"
Mona never ceased to marvel at her aunt's seemingly inexhaustible energy. At nearly sixty-five Grace continued to run her enormous mission with the verve and efficiency of a much younger woman.
Mona put her pen down and followed her aunt into the kitchen, where Mario was slicing ham for their cold supper. At sunset he would be locked out of the house.
"Thank goodness the tea plantations are unaffected by Mau Mau," Grace said as she measured Countess Treverton tea into the pot. "Britons would surrender if their tea was threatened!"
The houseboy looked over his shoulder with a grin.
Mona returned his smile and shook her head. Grace's dauntless attitude in the face of so much danger was what had kept her mission going when others had been abandoned. There had been two more Mau Mau attacks, and still, she stood her ground. Despite the troops stationed close by, despite the daily news reports of mutilated African corpses, hamstrung cattle, cats impaled on fence posts, and despite the constant racket of airplanes going over the forest, calling for the terrorists to come out and surrender, Grace managed to maintain her equilibrium and her optimism.
"It's no use turning on the news," Mona said as she set the table. They were going to sit in the warm sunshine, next to a window framed with flowers. "They're still searching for the oath giver in this area. The authorities are concentrating on that right now; they say that once he's found, a lot of the danger will be removed."
Grace stood at the stove waiting for the kettle to boil. She studied her niece who wore her usual Capris and oversize man's shirt. "I don't mean to be rude, Mona," she said, "but I do believe you're putting on weight. Surely it can't be because of Mario's cooking!"
"Yes, I'm putting on weight," Mona said with her back turned to her aunt. "But it has nothing to do with Mario's cooking. I'm pregnant."
Grace looked at her niece through gold wire-rimmed glasses. She blinked and said, "What?"
Mario, who had known Mona since she was a little girl, turned around.
Mona continued to set the table, placing paper napkins on the sandwich plates. "I'm going to have a baby, Aunt Grace. David Mathenge's baby."
Mario dropped his knife. It clattered on the linoleum, jarring the afternoon peace.
"Mona!" Grace whispered. "What on earth were you thinking!"
"I was in love, Aunt Grace. I am still in love. David and I care very much for each other."
"But... he's vanished!"
"Yes. He told me he had to go, and I let him."
"You know where David Mathenge is?"
Mona paused. A lump was gathering in her throat; tears rose in her eyes. She had not been able to bring herself to tell anyone that David had become one of them.
Grace stared at her niece for a moment, then gave Mario a significant look. Understanding, he discreetly left the kitchen. Grace and Mona sat down. They faced each other.
"My poor dear," the aunt said, "what are you going to do?"
"Do? I'm going to have David's baby."
"And then what? How will you live?"
"As I have lived the past thirty-four years. As anyone lives, one day at a time. Waiting for David to come back to me."
"Then you do know where he is?"
"Yes."
Grace looked into her niece's eyes and read an answer that she preferred not to know. "And what of the child? What sort
of life will it have?"
"It will be loved, Aunt Grace. It was conceived in love; it will be raised in love."
"What if David never comes back?"
"He will—" Mona's voice caught. "Then I shall raise the child on my own, and I will teach it to be proud of its father, of its two races."
Grace looked down at her hands. She listened to the song of birds outside her window, the reason why her first house, which had burned down on this spot many years ago, had been called Birdsong Cottage. She was thinking of the night the surgery hut was on fire and of the children's voices she had heard calling from inside.
"Mona," she said slowly, "you must know that if David does come back, he will no longer be the same man. He will have changed."
"I don't believe that."
"If he has joined Mau Mau, then he has taken the oath and he can no longer be trusted."
"Not David."
"You know the power of the oath, Mona! It can turn rational, intelligent men into monsters. It's a kind of psychological sickness. They believe in the binding of the oath. David is a Kikuyu, Mona!"
"He's different."
"Is he? Have you heard about the prisoners in the detention camps? Africans who had once been loyal headmen but who had turned on their white friends are being put through rigorous rehabilitation programs. The government has real witch doctors going about the camps giving anti-Mau Mau oaths! Mona, don't you see? David is one of them! And he joined them voluntarily, not against his will. Even when a man protests his loyalty to the government, he cannot be trusted, especially a man who willingly joined Mau Mau."
Mona stood abruptly. "David will never harm me. I know that."
"Mona, listen to—"
"Aunt Grace, I need your help with something. I want to ask a favor of you."
Grace's mouth formed a thin line. "What is it?"
"I've been writing letters to David. I want to get them to him."
"Well, you know where he is."
"I don't know exactly where he is, and I don't know how to pass these letters on to him. He told me that if I should need to communicate with him, I should go to his mother. He said that she would know what to do."
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