Abdi gave her a quizzical look, then shrugged and guided the car back onto the road. Periodically he glanced at his passenger in the rearview mirror.
He turned on the radio. There was a brief ad for Mona Lisa skin lightener, and then a Voice of Kenya newscaster was saying, "Our beloved president, the Honorable Daniel Arap Moi, today said that the government is striving to make health care available to all Kenyans by the year 2000."
Deborah pictured the village of Ongata Rongai, the starved, diseased children, the filth, the flies, and Christopher, trying to bring some hope, some relief from misery into their squalid lives. She thought of Sarah, riding through the strife-torn streets of Nairobi in her chauffeured Mercedes, and of the beggars sitting in the shade of the ostentatious and ill-kept Conference Center. It was almost as if, Deborah realized, two completely separate worlds occupied the same space.
She tapped Abdi on the shoulder and said, "If you don't mind," and pointed to the radio.
"Oh, pardon, please, miss." He turned it off, pulled a miraa leaf stem from his shirt pocket, and popped it into his mouth. Although miraa was considered a stimulant, Deborah knew that it was really a mood lifter, chewed by Kenyans to help them shoulder their problems.
The Peugeot sped past mile after mile of farmland. There were women in the fields and women walking along the roadside with enormous loads on their backs. Nearly all, Deborah noticed, were either pregnant or carried babies on their backs. Women stood at crossroads with children hanging on to their skirts; they trudged to and from local roadside vegetable stands. They were bent over in dirty ponds where cows stood, drawing up drinking water into their gourds, or they waited at bus stops for the already dangerously overcrowded matatus. Beyond the limits of Nairobi, Deborah realized, Kenya was a nation of women and children.
"Rains coming soon," Abdi said, breaking into her thoughts.
She looked at the blue sky. "How do you know?"
"Mamas in the fields, digging."
Deborah had forgotten. But now she remembered what reliable weathervanes the women on their shambas were. Even if there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the air didn't feel like rain, you still knew it was coming when the women got busy with the soil.
The rain is coming soon. How could she have forgotten that? As a child she had been acclimated to the rhythm of wet and dry periods and had grown up sensing the change even as these African women did. But Deborah had lost that intuition in California, where she had experienced her first real summers followed by brown and gold autumns, wintry Januaries, and floral springs.
What else have I lost? she wondered as she looked out at the fields of maize and tea.
The scene began to change, and Deborah's heart grew increasingly more anxious. The straight, flat highway narrowed and started to wind up through hills which were carpeted with squares of lush farmland. Now, too, as she drew closer to Mount Kenya, Deborah saw the dark rain clouds that were starting to spread across the sky.
"Be in Nyeri town soon, miss," Abdi said as he shifted gears to pass a Tusker beer truck.
They were delayed by a highway accident. As the Peugeot inched past the chaotic scene, Deborah looked at the policemen and uninterested ambulance attendants, while an enormous crowd of women and children had gathered to look at the impossible wreckage of four cars. She thought of Uncle Geoffrey and Uncle Ralph. The whole family killed...
Suddenly Deborah was reminded of another accident, a year ago, in San Francisco.
It was the opening night of the ballet. Baryshnikov was dancing, and the performance had been sold out for months. Jonathan, using his influence, had managed to obtain box seats and an invitation to the special banquet afterward. They had looked forward to it for weeks, and Deborah had bought an evening gown especially for it. Jonathan had picked her up at her apartment, and they had gotten as far as Mason and Powell when they saw the accident occur. A car went out of control on the rain-slicked road and crashed into a cable car.
As calmly as if organizing a picnic, Jonathan had taken over, triaging the injured from the dead, giving orders to the first-aiders on the scene, reassuring the victims, getting his tuxedo dirty, using his white scarf as a bandage, sorting out the chaos and panic for the police and paramedics, going to the hospital in one of the ambulances. Deborah had worked with him; between the two of them they had saved lives and stemmed hysteria. They missed the ballet and the banquet that night, and Deborah's gown was ruined. But she felt she had been more than generously compensated, for she had fallen in love that night with Jonathan.
On the outskirts of Nyeri they passed a girls' school. Deborah had attended it as a child. She wondered if Miss Tomlinson was still the stern headmistress and then remembered that the school must have been Africanized by now. A black woman would be in charge. Deborah strained to look as her car went by. The buildings and grounds looked neglected, and among the students out on the dusty playing fields, she saw not a single white face.
Finally, a large, faded sign loomed up over a dirt road: AFRICAN COFFEE COOPERATIVE, NYERI DISTRICT.
The old Treverton plantation.
"Please drive down there," she said. The dirt track followed the Chania River, which was flowing down a familiar ravine on their left.
When they came to the beginning of the farm, Deborah said, "Please stop here," and Abdi pulled the car over to the side. After the motor was turned off, an impressive silence engulfed them.
Deborah stared out the window. The plantation was exactly as she remembered it. Neat rows of coffee bushes, heavy now with green berries, covered five thousand acres of gently undulating landscape. To her right, on the horizon, Mount Kenya lifted from flat earth to a perfect peak, "like a Chinaman's hat," Grace had written in her journal. To Deborah's left was Bellatu, looking restored and remarkably vital.
Deborah got out of the car and walked a few paces over the red dirt. She turned her face away from the wind that portended rain and looked at the big house.
Who had bought it? Who lived there now?
Then she saw someone emerge from the front door and pause for a moment on the veranda. She was a Catholic nun dressed in the blue habit of the order that had taken over Grace Mission.
Was Bellatu a residence for sisters now? A convent perhaps?
Deborah turned and walked across the road. She stood upon a grassy ridge and looked across the wide ravine that cradled the Chania. It was completely deforested now; the land was shaved and scarred and laid out with humble shambas. She saw the square mud huts and the women toiling in the fields.
Forcing her eyes downward, Deborah saw the rugby field, which had once been a polo field, where two teams of African boys now played ball. She tried to imagine her grandfather, the dashing earl, on his pony, riding to a win.
Abutting the chain link fence was a modest homestead consisting of neat little vegetable plots, a pen for goats, and four square mud huts with tin roofs. There were women with babies down there, working the land. Deborah wondered who they were.
Finally she squinted at the slow-rolling Chania. She saw a ghost standing on the bank: young Christopher, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Phantom laughter—the laughter of a softer, more innocent Sarah—seemed to ring out over the water.
Deborah wanted to turn her back on the painful scene.
But she was rooted to the spot, to the red earth that her bare feet had known so well as a child. Deborah shivered. Her hair, clasped behind her neck and hanging straight down her back, was whipped up. It stung her cheeks. It flicked in front of her eyes. She pushed it away and continued to stand on the grassy ridge.
This land was still so beautiful, the air so crisp and pure and so full of the magic that had nurtured her at a tender age. Deborah felt like a little girl again, running free along the river, in love with Africa, her only company a family of colobus monkeys and a pair of otters. There had been no ugliness or poverty in that world; that Kenya had been sparkling and full of fantasy. And it was to that country Deborah had hoped to return,
to find the beginning again and start over, hoping, along the way, to find herself as well.
But that Kenya seemed no longer to exist, and Deborah was beginning to wonder if it ever had. How then, if she could not start again at the starting point, was she going to find her roots, the clues that would help her be at peace with herself?
She looked lastly at the mission, where a dying old medicine woman lay.
64
T
O DEBORAH'S SURPRISE, THE MANAGEMENT OF THE Outspan Hotel put her in Paxtu Cottage, the last home of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts.
In this bungalow, consisting of bedroom, living room, two fireplaces, and two bathrooms, the Chief Scout had lived out his final years and had died. He was buried in Nyeri, in a grave facing Mount Kenya, in the same churchyard where Sir James Donald had been laid to rest. The hotel was filled to capacity, the manager had explained. Normally they let the Baden-Powell cottage stand empty, as it was a beloved national memorial. But there were no other rooms available. The manager's name was Mr. Che Che, and Deborah wondered if he was a descendant of that same Che Che who had guided her aunt's oxcarts up from Nairobi sixty-nine years ago.
Paxtu was set among sloping green lawns with a perimeter of forest. It was isolated and quiet, and Deborah was glad to have it. As the porter brought in her suitcase and opened the drapes for her, revealing a spacious veranda and a view of Mount Kenya, she scanned the historical photos and letters that were carefully preserved in frames on the walls. Baden-Powell had named this cottage after Pax, his ancestral home in England; Deborah wondered if he had borrowed the example of Bellatu, which was nearby.
Since it was now past lunchtime, and the great busloads of tourists had come, eaten, and gone off up the mountain for an overnight at Treetops, the dining room and view terrace were quiet and nearly deserted. Deborah took a seat at a table and gazed at Mount Kenya, whose charcoal peaks against gunmetal clouds seemed to mock her return to East Africa. A soft-spoken waiter in black trousers and white jacket brought her a pot of tea and pointed to a table set out with afternoon pastries and tea sandwiches.
Despite "Africanization" and "Kenyanization" as official government initiatives to obliterate colonial traces from the country, such traditions seemed to Deborah too deeply embedded. High tea, she had seen, was also served at the Hilton, and she didn't doubt that like many other British customs that were holdovers from the colonial days, afternoon tea and white-gloved waiters were going to stay.
"Bugger me if it isn't Deborah Treverton!"
She looked up, startled. A stranger was standing on the lawn, staring at her.
She stared back. Then she said, "Terry?"
He came up to her, hand outstretched.
"Terry?" she said again, incredulous. Deborah thought she was seeing a ghost. But the hand that clasped hers belonged to a man very much alive.
He pulled out a chair and sat down. "Is this ever a shock! I saw you sitting here and I thought, Blow me if that woman doesn't look just like Deborah Treverton! And then I thought, It is her!"
She continued to stare, speechless. He looked the same as she remembered him, except that there was an even stronger resemblance now to Uncle Geoffrey, in the sunburned face, the outrageous self-confidence. Terry Donald was quite an attractive man, Deborah found herself thinking, in his beige cotton shirt, olive green vest and shorts, and knee socks and boots. His dark brown hair was considerably lighter than she recalled, no doubt from years in the sun, and his eyes were bluer.
"God, Deb! I can't believe it's you! How long's it been?"
The waiter came up. "Nataka tembo baridi, tafadhali," Terry said to him, ordering a beer.
"How come you never wrote, Deb? Did you just get here or have you been in Kenya long?"
"I thought you were dead" was all she could say.
He laughed. "Not bloody likely! Seriously, Deb. I seem to recall your saying something at your aunt's funeral about not going to America after all. And then the next day you were gone. What happened?"
She tried to remember. Grace's funeral. Deborah had decided not to accept the scholarship and must have told everyone. She forced a smile. "A woman's prerogative to change her mind. I went to California after all."
"Is this your first time back to Kenya?"
"Yes." She regarded him, still shocked. The memories he triggered! "Terry, I don't understand. I really thought you were dead. At the agency they said your family had been killed in a car accident."
His handsome smile faded. "Yes, they were."
Terry's beer came. He opened the bottle and poured it into a tall glass. Then he took out a cigarette and lit it with the lighter that hung in a leather pouch on a thong about his neck. He puffed, inhaled deeply, and then considerately turned his head away to blow the smoke. "Dad, Mum, Uncle Ralph, and my two sisters," he said, "all at one go. It happened on the bloody Nanyuki Road. They were on their way to the Safari Club. One of those bloody matatus bashed right into them, trying to pass another matatu. Twelve people in the other vehicle were killed." He released a short, bitter laugh. "What blows me is I was supposed to have been with them, but I had a flat tire on the way up from Nairobi, so they went off without me. I was on the road to the Safari Club when I came upon the accident. They were just being put into the ambulance."
"Oh, Terry, I'm so sorry."
"These bloody roads," he said, turning his glass around and around on the tabletop. "They don't maintain them, you know. The roads get worse every year. Soon there won't be any left."
"So you sold the agency?"
"Sold it! Not on your Nellie! Donald Tours is one of the most profitable operations in East Africa! Why would I sell it?"
"I went into the agency this morning and was told that a Mr. Mugambi now owned it."
"Oh, that." Terry reddened and laughed a little. "I'm Mr. Mugambi. I changed my name. It isn't Donald anymore." "Why did you do that?"
He looked up from his beer and made a discreet search of the terrace. "Tell you what, Deb," he said quietly. "Are you busy right now? Why don't you come over to the house with me? I'd like you to meet my wife. My home is here in Nyeri; it's not far."
Deborah, following his line of sight, looked over her shoulder and saw two Africans in casual linen suits drinking tea at a corner table and talking softly. "Who are they?" she asked.
Terry tossed a shilling on the table and pushed his chair back. "Come on, love. My Rover's out front."
When they were alone on a path crossing the hotel grounds, Terry said, "Those men were from Special Branch. You've got to watch what you say in Kenya these days."
As the Rover pulled out onto the main road, Terry said, "So how did you get up here? You're not driving yourself, I hope!"
"I rented a car and driver. I gave him the rest of the day off."
"So what is this for you then? A holiday? Come back to see the old places? You'll find that an awful lot's changed. Oh, maybe not on the outside, but underneath Kenya has changed."
She grew pensive as they passed the church where Terry's grandfather, Sir James, was buried. His grandmother, Lucille, whom neither of them had known, was buried in Uganda, as was his aunt Gretchen. Was Terry, then, the last of the Donalds?
"Do you have children?" she asked, suddenly needing to know.
"I have a boy and a girl. But you didn't answer my question. What brought you to Kenya?"
"Do you remember Mama Wachera, the medicine woman who lived in that hut by the polo field?"
"That queer old bird! Yes, I remember her. Is she still alive? My God, but I'd swear she was the last holdout of the older generation!"
Deborah told him about the letter from the nuns.
"What do you suppose she wants with you?" Terry asked as the Rover bounced along the track.
"I have no idea. I plan to go to the mission in the morning and find out."
"Are you in Kenya to stay, Deb?" he asked, casting her a cautious sideways glance.
His question surprised her. And
then suddenly she thought: Am I here to stay? "I don't know, Terry," she replied honestly. They pulled up to a chain link fence where signs read HATARI! DANGER! KALI DOGS! STAY IN YOUR CAR AND HONK YOUR HORN.
"Even here?" Deborah said as an askari opened the gate for them.
"Crime is bad all over Kenya, Deb. And it's on the rise. It's the population problem, you see. Kenya has the highest birthrate in the world. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"There isn't enough land to support everyone, not enough jobs to go around. And it's becoming a nation of youngsters. You've seen them, no doubt, young Africans in Nairobi, with nothing to do. You wouldn't believe the scams that are pulled on innocent tourists! I'm forever warning my people not to have anything to do with strangers they meet up with. So many of my female clients have their purses stolen."
"Are the police ineffectual then?"
"Ineffectual! Only if you don't pay them enough magendo. But I have a better system for keeping my chaps honest. If any of my clients come up missing something, I simply put the word out that I'm calling in a witch doctor. It never fails. The next morning there it is, whatever was nicked, quietly restored to the owner."
"Is such superstition so prevalent still?"
"Worse than ever, I suspect."
They pulled into a dusty compound where surly dogs were rounded up by Africans. The house was very old; Deborah recognized the original pioneer construction of whitewashed mud walls and thatch roof. It was large, long, and low and sagging-looking, but it was in good repair and appeared to be neatly kept.
"I have three residences," Terry explained as they went inside. "One in Nairobi, another on the coast. But this is where I keep my family. It's the safest place. So far."
The inside was cool and dark, with a low-beamed ceiling and polished wooden floor, leather sofas, and animal trophies everywhere. An African wearing khaki trousers and pullover sweater was setting the table for tea.
"We'll have that in here, Augustus," Terry called to the man, then guided Deborah to the arrangement of sofas around the biggest fireplace she had ever seen.
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