A Touch of Betrayal

by Catherine Palmer

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Cooper’s secretary is on vacation this week. May I take a message, or would you prefer to speak to Mr. Cooper’s voice mail?”

  “This is Alexandra Prescott. Did he leave any messages for me?”

  “One moment, please.” An infuriating silence passed before the receptionist returned to the phone. When she did, her voice was clearly flustered. “Uh, Miss Prescott . . . Mr. Cooper did leave you a message a few days ago. Would you like for me to read it?”

  “Of course.”

  “It says: ‘Alexandra, please don’t worry about anything. I’m taking care of things on this end. Relax, and have fun.’”

  “That’s it? He didn’t say anything about my account?”

  “No, ma’am . . . but yesterday he called in and left word with us that he had heard you were missing . . . missing in Africa.”

  “I had a problem, and I left my hotel without telling anyone. I know the authorities must be looking for me.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Alexandra said. “Listen, tell James I want to talk to him. Tell him . . . tell him I’ll try to call him in two days. Nine o’clock in the morning New York time. I need to talk to him. This is urgent. I need money. I need airline tickets. I need him to use his contacts to call off any search for me here in Kenya. He’s got to help me get out of this country. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ve written down everything. Where are you calling from? I mean, in case you don’t call him, maybe he could call you.”

  “I’m in a little town in southern Kenya.” Alexandra spelled the name from the sign on the store across the street. “O-l-oi-t-o-k-i-t-o-k. But there’s no way he can reach me here. I’ll call him in a couple of days—either from here or Nairobi.”

  “Yes, Miss Prescott. Uh, ma’am . . . are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’ll be all right when I can get back to New York.” She wound the cord around her finger, reluctant to let go of the sound of normalcy. “It’s hard to get through on these international phone lines. You make sure James is waiting for my call, okay?”

  “He’s staying at a ranch in Arizona. I can’t give you the number, but he checks in every day. I can try to patch you together.”

  “Tell him I need to know about my account. Specifics.”

  “All right, Miss Prescott. Is there anything else?”

  Alexandra searched her mind. Anything else? A thousand questions raced through her thoughts. Is it snowing there? How’s the food at that little bistro down the street? Are the trains running on time? What’s the best play on Broadway these days? Could you send out for some Chinese?

  “That’s all,” she said softly. And her heart whispered, Don’t forget about me.

  “I’ll convey your message, Miss Prescott.”

  “Good-bye then.” Alexandra pressed down the plunger and heard the line go dead.

  “Memsahib Prescott?” The African official touched her on the arm.

  “What?” Her heart hammering, she searched the room. “Where’s Grant?”

  “He has gone to the petrol station,” the man told her. He gave her a friendly smile that revealed his two missing lower incisors. His shoulder-length earlobes dangled as he handed her a bottle of warm Coca-Cola. “You wish to drink, madam? Very good. Just like America!”

  SIX

  Late that afternoon Grant sat outside his tent with five elders from the nearby kraal. Kakombe, who had remained at the kraal with his fellow warriors in preparation for the Eunoto, had also joined the meeting. The discussion of whether to allow Grant to attend the ceremony had gone on for hours, in traditional Maasai fashion. Each elder wanted to have his say before a consensus was reached. They had permitted Grant to sit in on the meeting. He was allowed to speak on his own behalf and explain why he wanted to go to the initiation rite and what he planned to do with the information he obtained.

  Eventually, his backside numb and his legs cramped from sitting on the low wooden stool, Grant found his attention wandering toward the spreading acacia tree under which Mama Hannah and Alexandra Prescott were seated. The older woman had her little Bible in hand. She looked up from her reading, and the two women appeared to discuss something for a few minutes, nodding their heads and chuckling over some bit of humor they had shared. Then Alexandra began to sing. Soon Mama Hannah joined her. The lilting sound drifted over to the Maasai elders, who stopped their discussion to listen.

  “What do they sing?” Kakombe’s father, Sentero, asked Grant in the Maasai language.

  Grant absorbed the song for a moment. “It’s called ‘Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man.’ It’s a children’s song about God.”

  The men grunted in understanding. In the kraals, their women often sang about God. “But who is this Zacchaeus?” Sentero asked. “Was he an elder? Did God, the powerful knowing one, speak to him?”

  “Jesus Christ spoke to him.”

  The men conferred for a moment. “Yes, Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” Sentero announced. “Jesus Christ is the one who offered the great sacrifice. Instead of slaughtering a bullock or a goat, he permitted himself to be sacrificed for the sin of the people.”

  “Who told you the story of the sacrifice?” Grant asked.

  “We heard the news from the great missionary Cummins,” Sentero said. “He was the man who first brought the message of Jesus Christ to the Maasai of Kaputei and Ngong-Magadi.”

  Grant nodded. Though he’d never met Harold Cummins, he knew the fellow had been teaching and starting churches in Maasailand since the mid-1970s. The tribespeople revered the man.

  “Sambeke Ole Kereya and I were among the first to step into the water for baptism,” Sentero went on. “By the time Cummins left us to live the years of his elderhood in America, thirty churches were meeting under the acacia trees or in small buildings. More than one thousand Maasai came to believe the words Cummins spoke. Oh yes, we know all about the Son of God.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “Certainly,” Sentero said. “We Maasai have always known about God, the splendor of the morning. We did not know his Son. Now many of us do.”

  Grant felt inwardly numb as he turned toward the women singing under the tree. These Maasai elders believed in Jesus Christ? The same Jesus Christ whom Mama Hannah worshiped? And Alexandra Prescott had obviously bought into the story, too.

  “There is some confusion among us on this matter,” another elder acknowledged. “We do understand about the great sacrifice. But Cummins and some of the others who believe in the Son of the Creator have told us that no man may marry more than one wife. How can this be so? A man must marry as many wives as he can afford, so that his children can care for his cattle.”

  “You are asking the wrong man this riddle,” Sentero said. “This friend of ours does not have even one wife!”

  The men chuckled heartily at that. Grant grinned, accustomed by now to their gentle teasing. All the same, it bothered him that Christian teachings were infiltrating the Maasai culture so swiftly. Following the trail Cummins had blazed, other missionaries had spread throughout Maasailand, and their congregations of believers were growing in size and strength. Just as rapidly as beaded leather togas had given way to red checkered ones, the old beliefs were evaporating in the heat of this faddish new religion.

  “Did Cummins also tell you this Son of God became alive again after his great sacrifice?” Grant asked. “Alive— after he was dead?”

  “Oh yes. A wonderful thing!”

  “You believe it?”

  “Do you not?” Sentero regarded Grant solemnly. “You, the man of many stories, do not know which ones are the truth?”

  Grant shifted uncomfortably. If he admitted he believed all mythologies were merely a means by which people explained their world, the Maasai would be offended. They would be reluctant to tell him any more of their legends— and they certainly wouldn’t invite him to the upcoming
ceremony.

  “You must join us in the kraal tonight,” Kakombe’s father said. “Sambeke Ole Kereya will arrive with other elders from his kraal. They are coming to unite with us for feasting, singing, and dancing. Because he studied in England for a time, Sambeke knows much more than I do about the Son of God. He can read the Bible, and this I cannot do. You may ask Sambeke all your questions. After he tells you, then you will understand why we believe. You will know in your heart that this is true.”

  “And what about Eunoto?” Grant asked. “May I also be permitted to attend that ceremony?”

  The elders looked at each other, silently seeking a consensus. Finally Sentero nodded. “Yes, you will come,” he said. “And you will bring her whose hair is the color of the first milk of a cow at milking time. She of the English is the woman God has sent to become your wife. Everyone in the kraal will want to look at her.”

  “My wife?” Grant glanced at the woman under the tree.

  “Oh yes,” Sentero said. “It is clear to everyone. But now we must go.”

  Their meeting adjourned, the elders stood. Grant followed them toward the edge of the clearing. At least he’d been officially invited to the ceremony. Now if he could just figure out how to send God’s gift to Nairobi so she could catch a plane back to the States . . .

  “Oh, mother of Grant Thornton.” Kakombe’s father stopped beneath the acacia tree to give Mama Hannah the traditional Maasai greeting. “Please tell us—who is this man Zacchaeus of whom you sing?”

  When Hannah and Alexandra turned to Grant for an explanation, he translated the question. “Just tell him it’s a children’s song, Mama Hannah,” he added. “They’ve invited me over to the kraal, and I want to talk to—”

  “Zacchaeus was a very small man,” the old woman interrupted, looking directly at Sentero. “He was also a very bad man—a cheater and a thief. But he wanted to see the Lord Jesus Christ, who was traveling to the man’s village.” Stopping her narration, she spoke to Grant. “Tell this man what I have said.”

  Grant dutifully translated her words.

  “The Son of God must have been very angry with such an evil man,” Kakombe’s father said. “Did Jesus Christ command Zacchaeus to pay a fine of a bullock or a young heifer? Or did he call a council of elders to discuss this matter?”

  Grant translated again, aware that the communication was growing frayed. Mama Hannah attempted to ignore the elders’ questions and go on with the story, but they began to discuss what the proper fine for cheating and stealing should be. They asked Mama Hannah exactly what it was that Zacchaeus had stolen, so that they could set the appropriate fine. When she tried to explain about tax collecting, the elders demanded to know where this terrible Zacchaeus was living now so that they could exact vengeance. One man began flicking his wildebeest-tail fly whisk around in the air and uttering loud, agitated grunts. Grant spoke back and forth, translating, mollifying, trying to explain—until suddenly Alexandra stood.

  “‘Zacchaeus was a wee little man,’” she sang, acting out the childish gestures that went along with the song. “‘A wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.’”

  She pointed up into a nearby tree. The elders nodded in understanding. Then Alexandra sang again, gesturing along with the words. “‘As the Savior came that way, he looked up in the tree. And he said, “Zacchaeus, you come down, for I’m going to your house today.”’”

  The elders burst out laughing. Clustering around Alexandra, they begged her to sing the song again. Grant was ordered to translate the words. The Maasai agreed that the Son of God was a most amazing man to love as terrible a person as Zacchaeus enough to visit his kraal. And then, while Alexandra sang, all the elders began acting out the song themselves—portraying the little man, pretending to climb into the tree, and shaking their fingers.

  “Oh, Grant Thornton,” Sentero said after Alexandra had repeated the song seven more times. “We all agree that he whose robe has many folds has given you an intriguing gift. There is no day in which good is not born, and there is no day in which bad is not born.”

  “What do you mean by telling me this proverb?”

  “We believe,” the man explained, “that this woman God has sent to you is very ugly—with hair the color of new milk, with long, thin legs like the limbs of a young tree, and with skin like the snow of Kilimanjaro on which the setting sun casts its redness. We are very sorry for you about that. But this woman is a most clever singer! Her voice is like that of the laughing dove. Also, she is kind to the old woman. One day she will be strong enough to build a good house for you and bear many sons. We believe she will make a fine wife for you. Now this we command: You will bring the woman tonight to the kraal. In two days’ time, you will bring her to the Eunoto. She will sing the song about the bad man who climbed the tree in order to see the Son of God. May he carry you under his wings.”

  So saying, Sentero turned and began his dignified stroll back to the kraal. The other elders moved along beside him, clearly satisfied that all was well. Grant set his hands on his hips and regarded the women.

  “Well, I hope you two are happy,” he said. “You just added a Judeo-Christian story to the lexicon of Maasai legends I’ve been trying to keep pure for years.”

  “Yes, I am very happy,” Mama Hannah answered. “Now the old men know that God loves all people—even the bad ones.”

  Grant rolled his eyes. “And before I can put a stop to it, Zacchaeus will be transmuted into some high-paid government official trying to steal Maasai cattle while climbing thorn trees.”

  “The men seemed to like the song,” Alexandra said, “but I had this feeling they were talking about me. What did they say?”

  Grant pondered his answer for a moment. She gazed at him with wide blue eyes, and he felt a wave of tenderness curl inside him. For some unknown reason it mattered to this New York fashion designer what a bunch of old Maasai men thought about her.

  “They said you have hair like fresh cream,” Grant said. “You’re as tall and willowy as a young tree, and your skin is as lovely as snow. They think you’re intriguing.” He met her eyes. “And so do I.”

  Alexandra wasn’t at all sure she wanted to go to the Maasai feast with Grant Thornton. She didn’t like the idea of walking around on fresh cow dung in the dark. She didn’t relish the thought of what she might be offered to drink. She was still very sore and tired from her recent ordeal. And she didn’t want to leave Mama Hannah alone, even though one of the young Maasai warriors had agreed reluctantly to miss the feasting and stand guard near the tents. The main reason Alexandra didn’t want to go, though, was Grant himself. In the past couple of hours, the man had become downright obstinate.

  “I don’t see why you refuse to drive me to Nairobi tomorrow morning,” she said as she followed his flash-light beam through the tall grass toward the kraal. Though he clearly didn’t want her along, he had insisted she come because the Maasai elders had requested her presence. “The city is only a hundred and fifty miles from here, isn’t it? That would take us three hours at the most. You could be back by evening.”

  “You flew from Nairobi to Amboseli National Park, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Driving it will take a good part of a day. At their best, the roads in Kenya are two-lane highways covered with potholes. At worst, they’re dirt tracks. Depending on the time of year, they’re nothing but mud. If I leave in the morning, I’ll have no choice but to spend the night in Nairobi. The Eunoto ceremony lasts only four days—starting day after tomorrow. You’ll just have to wait.”

  “But I need to get out of here. I have to arrange a ticket back to the States. I have to call my broker.” She stumbled over a knot of grass roots and caught Grant’s arm to keep from falling. The flashlight swung in a crazy arc. “Sorry. I tripped.”

  He stopped. “Look, Alexandra, I sympathize with you. This isn’t what you expected when you booked your tour. B
ut you’ve got to understand I have a life here. My research depends on a thorough accounting of all the Maasai ceremonies. All of them. Eunoto doesn’t come around but every fifteen years or so. I can’t miss this.”

  “So what am I supposed to do—sit under a tree for four days while my finances are in chaos?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look . . . something has gone wrong. I told you I got a cable right before that . . . that man . . . attacked me. Things are a mess, and if I don’t get back there to straighten them out, I could end up broke. I know that doesn’t matter to you, Mr. Seven Socks, but it does to me! I have plans for that money.”

  He was flicking the flashlight on and off, its beam aimed at her rubber-tire sandals. “So that’s what this is all about?” he asked finally. “Your money?”

  “My father’s money.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her borrowed trousers. “It’s like those stocks are a treasure chest. I have to protect it. It’s a lot of money, Grant. My father worked very hard to earn that treasure, and I’m not about to stand by and watch it be frittered away. I’ve never been poor—and I never intend to be.”

  “Poor.” He snapped off the light. “Exactly what is the meaning of that word?”

  “Hey, turn the light back on.”

  “Look up, Alexandra.” He tilted her chin with his fingertips. “You don’t need a flashlight on a night like this one.”

  She blinked up at the awesome expanse of shimmering stars. The earth beneath her feet reeled away, miniaturized suddenly by the enormity of the great inky sky overhead. Never—even on the darkest night at the Texas ranch where she’d grown up—had Alexandra seen such majesty. The constellations stretched their arms in exhilaration. The Milky Way frothed and bubbled through the blackness. And the moon glittered in a white almost too bright to bear.

  “You don’t need diamonds when you’ve got stars,” Grant said in a low voice. “You don’t need silver when you have the moon.”