Leopard at the Door

by Jennifer McVeigh

  “When will you give me ECT?”

  “I don’t want you to worry yourself about that.”

  “But you will give it to me again?”

  He smiles at me—a man condescending to a child.

  “Will it hurt the baby?”

  “There is no reason to think that ECT interferes with the fetus. There is a slight increased risk of gastric regurgitation, so we will use a tube to keep your airways clear.”

  He withdraws his hand and pulls down my smock.

  “Does my father know?” I ask, and he smiles patiently, but does not answer, and I know I should not have mentioned my father.

  “You’re free to go, Miss Fullsmith. I will see you again shortly.”

  I sit at the edge of the bed, my hands over my smock, palms against my womb. My face is wet with tears—gratitude and the horror of helplessness. I carry something—something of Michael’s—that is already more valuable to me than myself. I must protect it—and yet I cannot. My body is not my own.

  XXVII

  Rachel Fullsmith?”

  The nurse is standing in the center of the compound. She is looking for me. I feel a tremor of terror. I do not want to be noticed, but when she sees me watching she nods. I look around. Others are staring also. The patients for ECT have already been taken this morning. What does she want with me?

  I walk toward the gates.

  “You are to be discharged,” she says, when we are outside the compound.

  I stare at her in disbelief. “I can leave? Today?”

  “Yes. You are free to go.”

  I follow her across the yard, past the African compounds where men stand leaning, with their arms hanging through the wire, into the administration building that first received me, and along the black-and-white lino floor.

  “Rachel?”

  I stop and turn. The voice is familiar, but the sun shines too starkly through the blue, latticed window and it is difficult for me to see. A face that I recognize. Lillian Markham. She is walking alongside me, on the other side of the wall. The nurse walks ahead of me and opens the blue metal door at the end of the corridor. I stop for just a moment and press my hands into my eyes. The fire, Sara tearing at the window, Steven’s lies, the horror of this prison. I have held so much together and now I feel it all unraveling. I take a deep breath. She is silhouetted just outside of the open door. Only a few paces from where I stand. I run forward, into the light, and she is pulling me over the threshold. She has her arms around me. Her tears fall wet against my neck. She smells of jasmine and tea. Behind me the door to the hospital clangs shut.

  It has only been five days, but I feel as though I might have lost myself forever.

  —

  THE MUTHAIGA CLUB. The tweed jackets, collared shirts and tea dresses of the men and women who know nothing of where I have been. We stand in a corner of the car park—Lillian has brought clothes—she pulls a jumper over my head, and I slip on a pair of her slacks. An African opens the doors, and I follow her into the paneled hallway that smells of cigar smoke and beeswax. My legs feel unsteady, and I put a hand to a pillar, thinking I might fall down. Lillian sees, and she puts my arm over her shoulder and helps me down the corridor. A stuffed lion’s head gazes out at us from a glass box. There is a dark paneled room. Africans in white robes and crimson fezzes pour tea into delicate china cups. Trolleys squeak by with a tiny turning of wheels. I drop into an armchair in the corner. She orders me a whiskey and as I drink my hand begins to steady.

  “Can you talk?” she asks.

  “I think so.”

  “I want you to tell me everything.”

  I think I might not be able to begin, that the images that whirl around my head, that haunt me day and night, might not conform to the simple pattern of words. But once my voice begins to feel its way over what has happened, the events slip into place. I tell her about being twelve years old. The strike at Uplands. The room upstairs in the factory. About what I saw Steven Lockhart do to the man. I tell her about what happened afterward in my uncle’s house; him pinning me in his lap; his hands touching me. I tell her about what he has done to me since I have been back, and what he has tried to do. I tell her about Michael, about my fear that he is dead, about our closeness, his politics, how he helped me escape the fire. I tell her that I tried to get Sara out of the house, but that she would not come. I tell her that I am carrying Michael’s baby. There can be no secrets. I am beyond the judgment of others.

  She listens, and when it is over she reaches forward and takes my hand and holds it, and I know that it is all right. I can let go now; of all the horror, the shame and the fear. I lean back in the chair and shut my eyes, and feel myself drown in a sea of colors. Nausea pulls at me. I open my eyes again and focus on Lillian.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Nate Logan. Sara told him that you had been admitted to Mathari. He tried to get you out, but Dr. Measden wouldn’t discharge you unless you were under the care of a European woman.”

  I take a breath and ask the question I have wanted to ask since I saw her. “Did my father know?”

  “He had a conversation with Steven, after you fainted—the evening of the attack. But he did not sign you in. He was scarcely conscious when it happened. Steven Lockhart organized your admission with Sara’s help. Nate Logan went to your father with your discharge papers and he signed them immediately.” He released me, but is it enough? Had he agreed that night—before he saw me in my mother’s dress—to send me to Mathari? I wonder where he is right at this minute. In Nairobi Hospital?

  “How is he?”

  “He lost a lot of blood, and there was some internal damage, but he has managed to avoid infection. The doctors say he will make a good recovery. There will always be an inherent weakness—but he will be able to return home.”

  Home. The blackened buildings. Sara.

  “What happened that night? At the farm?”

  “A gang came down from the forest to the new shamba. They stirred up trouble—a distraction to draw your father away.”

  “Was Jim involved?”

  “He was killed, Rachel. The gang had been attempting to oath in the new shamba for months. Jim refused to be a part of it. They tried to get Kahiki as well—but he managed to escape to the house.”

  I swallow heavily, remembering the tortured look in Jim’s eyes over the last few months, remembering Njeri, on the day she left; their baby scarcely a few weeks old; remembering his broad hands on my waist, as a child, lifting me up to set me on the kitchen counter. My eyes are wet with tears. He is dead. And what kind of life will Njeri have now?

  Lillian is looking at the table, and I know there is something else that she has not told me yet. Something she has held back. She gives me a quick, reassuring look. “You were released, Rachel, on one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  She takes my hand again. “That you are repatriated.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you will have to go back to England. Dr. Measden insisted.”

  “Why?” I don’t understand what she is saying.

  “You know Kenya Colony. They like to uphold appearances. It’s their way of tidying the whole thing up.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m going to come with you, on the ship. I’m repatriating myself—” She smiles at me. “I’ve had enough of it here. We’re getting older, the two of us, and Gerald struggles with the farm, and there were never any children.” She is smiling still, but I see the tears welling in her own eyes. This is her good-bye. “Gerald will sell up and come back in a few months.” She squeezes my hand again and looks at me. “I thought you might live with us—that is, if you wanted to.” She falters for a moment. “Just at the beginning, until you get settled.”

  “Even with the baby coming?” I struggle to grasp what she is saying.

  “Especially w
ith the baby.”

  I do not hear what she has said, so much as feel it. A warmth that spreads through my body, melting the pain. I smile. “So you’re not going to leave me?”

  She holds my hand and smiles back at me. “I’m not going to leave you.” I think of leaving Kenya. Leaving Michael. England—wet and cold. I know I can face the future if I am with her.

  I close my eyes. I am not sure how long. Time slips past me.

  “What about my father?” I ask, when I open my eyes. Though I know the answer already.

  “He will stay, Rachel.”

  After a moment she says, “Our ship doesn’t leave for two days. There is still time.”

  Time for what? I do not ask. Instead I close my eyes, and let the world within cover me in darkness.

  —

  I DO NOT sleep well at night. I wake, sweating from nightmares. Lillian is in a room next door and I do not wake her. When morning comes, filtering through the glass, it brings relief. She said that he would come today, just after sunrise.

  My room has a veranda that leads—past a spread of lawn—to a shallow, colonnaded terrace. It is rarely used by guests. I step out just after dawn. Everything is quiet except for the chattering of the crows in the half-light. I sit in a wicker chair in my nightdress, my feet cool on the stone, my hands in my lap just below the thickening in my belly. Waiting. Coconut palms grow at the edge of the veranda, shielding me from the eyes of strangers. An African is sweeping the red earth, the rhythmic sound of my childhood. Sweep, sweep, sweep, scrape. I think of Michael in the yard, his eyes lifting to mine, the current that passed between us, and I feel again the vital, crushing want to have him here, and the helplessness. We are leaving for Mombasa in a few hours. I will not see him again. I have no way of knowing whether he is dead or alive; of telling him that I am carrying his child; that I am leaving Kenya.

  A frail old lady crosses the lawn, pushing a hand over her white hair, and a man of about sixty-five, perhaps her son, an officer, pulled-up socks, chino shorts and a collared shirt stretched tight over a slight paunch, helps her to the other side. A gun hangs in a holster around his waist. He represents the colonial enterprise—cricket pitches, the army, Sunday lunches and the Queen’s Coronation. No doubt they are leaving to go up-country. I feel uneasy as I watch them, no longer comfortable here in Kenya, among these people. They disappear into the club, and for a long while the gardens sit in a tranquil half-light.

  Time passes. The swing door pushes open. I know before I can make out his face that it is him. His injury has crumpled him—he is hunched over the walking stick that he holds in one hand—but there is the familiar bulk of his shoulders, the large hands that picked me up as a child, the eyes that loved me and did not. He glances around the gardens. He is searching for me. I do not move. A bird calls above us. The African has stopped his sweeping. My father crosses the lawn to the terrace. He sits in a chair under the stone colonnades. He has not seen me and I do not call out to him. My cheeks, my mouth, are wet with tears. Something inside me is tearing. I see a young girl running in her nightdress across the lawn. She throws herself in his lap, and he pulls her, laughing, into his arms. This is my childhood. This is our good-bye.

  There is a knock at my door. “Memsaab, your father is waiting for you.”

  “Sawa sawa,” I call out softly, my voice catching, but I do not rise. It is too late. I am no longer the girl I was.

  My father’s face glistens. It might be a trick of the light, but for a moment I think that there are tears falling from his eyes. A waiter brings him a glass of water. His glass sits untouched for a long time. When he brings it to his lips I see that his hand shakes. I do not call out to him. I do not go to him. He is my father. I am his daughter. There is nothing greater between us than this.

  EPILOGUE

  I sit on the brown carpet in a small patch of winter sunlight. The electric heater glows hot and red, giving out the faint smell of dust singeing. The boy next door is kicking a ball against the wall and I hear the scuff of his heels, and then the bounce as it thumps off the brick. I take the large brown envelope, stamped from Kenya, turn it over and slide my finger into the crease to open it.

  Inside is a folded newspaper: the East African Standard, dated 17 October 1955. I scan down the page until I see the article circled in red.

  DISTRICT OFFICER CONVICTED OF MANSLAUGHTER

  Colonel Steven Lockhart, a District Officer of the Nakuru District, has been convicted of the manslaughter of Kikuyu political activist Jomo Kimoi, in a strike at Uplands Bacon Factory in 1946. Mr. Eliot Fullsmith, owner and manager of Uplands, and present on the day of the strike, testified against Lockhart. Fullsmith was the first person to see the body of the deceased. There was a written testimony from his niece, Rachel Fullsmith, twelve years old at the time of the strike, who was a witness to the events. Jomo Kimoi—the deceased—was a prominent figure in the Kenya African Union. Lockhart has been sentenced to five years in prison.

  It is barely enough. And yet it is something. There is no mention of what he tried to do to me, on the track, under the sun, at Kisima; the pressure he put on my father to have me committed to Mathari. The violence against the Kikuyu which I had seen in Harold’s photographs. It is manslaughter not murder, but it is a conviction.

  I open the newspaper and a note slips out:

  Rachel—

  At last, something of what you deserve.

  I saw your father last week. Pirate is well. Your father says he is the worst kind of shenzi, but I think he means it as a compliment.

  How are your studies?

  Write to me.

  Nate

  I smile at the thought of Pirate. He was found in the bushes by the stables, after the fire, and my father took him in. They are living in Nairobi. Sara is still with him, though they are not yet married.

  I turn the note over. There is no mention of Michael and I try to swallow my disappointment. What news should I hope for? Nate has promised to keep an ear to the ground, but I have read the liberal papers in England. They report on the forced labor camps in Kenya, the abuse and death of hundreds of prisoners, and the men still living in the forest, fighting British troops. The war carries on. How will I ever know if he is alive or dead?

  At the university, where I am specializing in African politics, I do not tell them what I have been through, but I soak up the political dialogue. All the articulate rage, and store it away. It is the start of something for me. I do not know where it will take me, but I think my journey is just beginning.

  “Mama?” The voice carries downstairs, and my heart gives a leap of joy. Michael—he is awake. I run up the stairs. Lillian will be home later, and Gerald at the weekend. But for now the house—the boy—is all mine.

  “Mama?”

  I open the door, smiling, eager for the feel of his warm, brown skin against mine, eager for the sheer miracle of him, proof against all odds of where I have been. Proof against all odds that love is greater than separation.

  POSTSCRIPT

  In his book Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire, David Anderson notes, “Contrary to public perception, only thirty-two European settlers died in the [Mau Mau] rebellion, and there were fewer than two hundred casualties among the British regiments and police who served in Kenya over these years. Yet more than 1,800 African civilians are known to have been murdered by Mau Mau, and many hundreds more to have disappeared, their bodies never found. Rebel losses were far greater than those suffered by the British security forces. The official figures set the total number of Mau Mau rebels killed in combat at 12,000, but the real figure is likely to have been more than 20,000. . . .

  “In the final tally, the British hanged 1,090 Kikuyu men for Mau Mau offences.

  “Convicted murderers among this total numbered [only] 346. All the other executed men had been convicted of offences specially defined
as capital charges under the Emergency Powers Regulations. . . .

  “In no other place, and at no other time in the history of British imperialism, was state execution used on such a scale as this.”

  A GLOSSARY OF KITCHEN SWAHILI

  asante—thank you

  askari—soldier

  ayah—nursemaid

  boma—livestock enclosure

  bwana—master

  effendi—sir

  gakunia—colonial agent dressed in a sack hood with eye holes

  jambo—hello

  jambo sana—welcome

  kali—severe

  kikoy—a garment made of striped cloth

  kipande—identity card

  leleshwa—a small shrub, also known as African wild sage or camphor bush

  lunghi—a sarong-like garment

  maganga—curse of witchcraft

  mchawi—witch doctor

  memsaab—madam

  mtoto—a child

  mzuri—good

  ndiyo—yes

  ngoma—a dance

  panga—a sword, a large chopping knife

  posho—maize meal porridge

  sawa sawa—OK

  shamba—cultivated plot of land

  shauri—dispute

  shenzi—mongrel, mixed breed

  watu—people (African)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to a number of people without whose help and encouragement the book could not have been written. Araminta Whitley, Venetia Butterfield and Sara Minnich, for their insight, critique and enthusiasm. Richard Britten-Long, whose battered red suitcase—handed down from his grandmother—contained the rich wealth of documents, photographs and police pamphlets that inspired the novel. David M. Anderson, Professor of African History at the University of Warwick and author of the seminal Histories of the Hanged, for so generously answering my questions on the period; Dr. Sloan Mahone, who talked to me about Mathari in the 1950s; and Dr. Will Jackson, for his informative writing on the white, marginalized underclass in colonial Kenya. The novel is also indebted to the memoirs of the men and women, on both sides, caught up in the Mau Mau struggle, in particular Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s memoir Dreams in a Time of War, Josiah Mwangi Kariuki’s Mau Mau Detainee and The Gate Hangs Well by James W. Stapleton, which was the source for the radio broadcasts on pages 217 and 218.